Preamble

The House met at Half-past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ASHDOWN FOREST BILL

BOLTON CORPORATION BILL

Lords Amendments considered, pursuant to Order [22nd July], and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Hearing Aids

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Minister of Health when aids to hearing will be supplied to the many persons in Swindon in great need of them.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): My right hon. Friend regrets that he cannot say when the supply will have caught up with the very large accumulated demand, but the supply has just been doubled.

Mr. Gerald Williams: asked the Minister of Health what percentage of Medresco hearing aids have been found to be faulty.

Mr. Blenkinsop: About 3 per cent. of the aids delivered to distribution centres are now returned as faulty. Of the aids issued to patients in the first year about 24 per cent. have come in for servicing or repair in England and Wales, but it is difficult to know how much of this represents original faults in the instruments.

Mr. Williams: Has the hon. Gentleman any idea how long it takes to repair these hearing aids, because there is a great deal of complaint about this matter?

Mr. Blenkinsop: Very often the repairs are minor servicing repairs. We regard the proportion of sets which come back for minor repairs and servicing as extremely small.

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Health what is now the average time taken to obtain a Medresco hearing aid after a certificate has been given.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The waiting period varies between the different distribution centres and in any case depends on priority of need. The average would, therefore, be meaningless even if it could be obtained.

Pasteurised Milk (Hospitals)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that hospital boards are being instructed to supply pasteurised milk in hospitals, even although it comes from a tuberculin-tested herd; and why it is necessary that tuberculin-tested milk should be pasteurised.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I know of no such instructions, and I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave him on 14th July.

Mr. Baldwin: While the word "instructions" may be an over-emphasis, does the Minister deny that strong recommendations have been made by regional hospital boards to local management committees to go in for pasteurised milk as against T.T. milk? Is this part of a scheme to get cheaper milk and contribute to the reduction of £9½ million in the cost of hospital management?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I refute that suggestion entirely. This is solely a matter for the hospital management committees themselves to decide.

Opticians

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Health what is the number of ophthalmic opticians in England and Wales now employed in providing optical treatment within the National Health Service.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Five thousand six hundred and sixty-two.

Dr. Broughton: Does my hon. Friend consider this number sufficient to meet the needs of the National Health Service,


and is he satisfied that ophthalmic opticians as a whole have shown that high standard of professional service which the Minister expected?

Mr. Blenkinsop: We are hoping for an increase in the numbers which will become available for the service, and we feel that in general the professional standard of ophthalmic opticians is high.

Mr. Tolley: Can my hon. Friend tell-us what percentage of the number of available opticians are out of the scheme at present?

Mr. Blenkinsop: Not without notice.

X-Ray Examinations, Bristol

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that whereas it was formerly the practice that general practitioners in Bristol could send patients to the Central Health Clinic for X-ray examination of the chest, patients can now be sent there only if referred by a special chest physician or surgeon; why this change has been made; and whether it is temporary or permanent.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I am having inquiry made and will write to my hon. Friend.

Panel Patients, Bristol

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Health what is the average number of patients on the panel of doctors at Bristol; and what is the highest and the lowest number.

Mr. Blenkinsop: At 1st April last the average number was 2,300, the highest something over 4,000, the lowest two.

Merchant Navy Personnel

Mr. Marples: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that officers and men of the Merchant Navy pay Income Tax and National Insurance contributions but are unable to receive any health treatment when they are at sea or abroad in port; and, in view of the fact that the stay in a foreign port is a suitable moment for certain treatment, what action does he propose to take to remedy this state of affairs.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) on 7th April.

Mr. Marples: Does the hon. Gentleman consider it fair that these men should pay the same contribution as the rest of the public, and yet be prevented from receiving the same benefit by reason of the type of their employment? Will he look into the matter again?

Mr. Blenkinsop: We have been looking into the question of dental services, as it was suggested that they were not adequate. Although there is no general complaint we are willing to look into individual cases.

Mr. Keenan: Is my hon. Friend aware of the difficulty that seafarers are in if they have to get treatment abroad? In such a case the cost is deducted from their pay, and should not something be done to meet that cost?

Mr. Drayson: Have we any reciprocal arrangement with foreign Governments whereby they give medical service to our nationals such as they are able to receive over here?

Mr. Blenkinsop: If the hon. Member will look at the earlier Question to which I have referred he will see that negotiations are proceeding.

Mr. Marples: Will the hon. Gentleman go into the whole question again, because seafaring people spend from 70 to 80 per cent. of their time abroad and are prevented from receiving full benefits although they pay the same contributions as anybody else?

Mr. Blenkinsop: indicated assent.

Mental Patients, East Anglia (Accommodation)

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Minister of Health what proposals have been approved by him in the last 12 months for providing further accommodation in the area of the East Anglian Regional Hospital Board for juvenile and adult mental defectives.

Mr. Blenkinsop: None, Sir. But my right hon. Friend now has under urgent review a scheme for 100 beds at Little Plumstead Hall, and 25 more have just become available at St. Neots.

Mrs. Leah Manning: In view of the fact that the Minister has promised to make these arrangements quickly would


he remove the three mentally defective children from St. Margaret's Hospital, Epping, about which I wrote to him?

Mr. Blenkinsop: That is another question.

Hospital Staffs (Trade Union Badges)

Mr. Hardy: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that members of staffs in some hospitals are prevented from wearing their trade union badges whilst on duty; and what steps he will take to secure that permission is always given.

Mr. Blenkinsop: My right hon. Friend has no evidence that this is true, but if so, it is unwarranted interference with the individual.

Dentists

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Health the number of dentists who are qualified and the number registered under the Dentists Acts, 1921 to 1923; how many National Health Service dentists are qualified; and how many registered under the said Acts.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The number of dentists on the Dental Register in the United Kingdom who are graduates or licentiates in dental surgery is 10,255, and the number registered under the Dentists Acts, 1921 to 1923, is 4,361. I regret that the information requested in the second and third parts of the Question is not available.

Sir J. Mellor: If the Minister is unable to give the information asked for in the last part of the Question, is it surprising that the National Health Service is getting into difficulties? Cannot the Parliamentary Secretary say what proportion of each of these categories has joined the National Health Service?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I can let the hon. Baronet know that out of approximately 10,000 dentists actively engaged in general practice some 9,400 are within the National Health Service.

Sir J. Mellor: Cannot the hon. Gentleman say what proportion of these are registered under the Dentists Acts?

Mr. Blenkinsop: Not without a quite unreasonable expense in finding out.

Private Patients {Drugs)

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Minister of Health what he estimates would be the increased cost of allowing private patients to obtain drugs recommended by their doctor free of charge.

Mr. Blenkinsop: If the estimated annual rate of expenditure on the pharmaceutical services were proportionately increased in respect of the 5 per cent. of the population of England and Wales not on doctors' lists, the increase would amount to about £1 million.

Mr. Hughes: Does not the official figure show a wild miscalculation on the part of those responsible for framing the new Tory programme? Will my right hon. Friend resist this incitement to reckless expenditure by His Majesty's Opposition?

Mr. Blenkinsop: It shows signs of extravagance in Tory election promises.

Aged and Chronic Sick, Birmingham

Mr. Yates: asked the Minister of Health if the Regional Hospital Board have completed their investigation of the problem of the aged and chronic sick in the City of Birmingham; and what steps are being taken to improve existing facilities for those aged persons in need of hospital treatment.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The regional board has not yet completed its investigation; meanwhile efforts are being made to increase nursing staff and to bring into use additional beds.

Mr. Yates: Is my hon. Friend aware that the waiting lists in these hospitals are such that admission cannot be obtained under about three months, in spite of the fact that more aged chronic mental patients have been admitted to hospitals in the past year than in previous years? In view of the urgency of this grave problem, will my hon. Friend press for an investigation so as to get a solution?

Mr. Blenkinsop: Most urgent steps are being taken. We fully appreciate the urgency of the matter.

Mr. Austin: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind that Birmingham is not alone in this respect? Will he


see that other areas. including cities like Manchester, are given equal consideration?

Mr. Shurmer: Is it not a fact that this is the result not of the present National Health Service, but of neglect in the past to build hospitals?

Spectacles, Dentures and Wigs

Mr. Teeling: asked the Minister of Health how many pairs of glasses and how many sets of false teeth and how many wigs have been provided in the last 12 months; and how many demands are still outstanding.

Mr. Blenkinsop: At a very rough estimate, about 4½ million pairs of spectacles have been supplied under the supplementary eye service and between three and four million pairs are on order. No information is available as to the number of dentures. Up to 20th May, 8,000 wigs were ordered and 2,600 supplied through the Ministry of Pensions, on the advice of specialists.

Mr. Teeling: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in a recent communication which I have had from his Department it is stated that well over 5 million pairs of spectacles have been provided in the last 12 months? Are the figures that he has given quite accurate? Is he trying to keep the number down? Will the hon. Gentleman say whether those figures are in accordance with the estimates that were expected? Obviously they are becoming far more. Will he say what likelihood there is of people obtaining these wigs, spectacles and dentures?

Mr. Blenkinsop: There is a very good chance, a far better chance than they had before, when they had very little opportunity of getting any of this service from hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUTS, WEST PENWITH

Commander Agnew: asked the Minister of Health the present position regarding the allegations of irregularity in connection with the requisitioning of certain hut dwellings on Hayle Towans by the West Penwith Rural District Council, about which the hon. and gallant Member for Camborne wrote to the Parliamentary Secretary on 28th June. 1949.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I am informed that the council has decided to release the properties if the owners implement undertakings they have given regarding occupation of the premises.

Commander Agnew: While appreciating that it would have been a continuing injustice to deprive these persons longer of their properties because it was a contravention of the powers of delegation, when a case of the sort occurs about which I wrote to the Minister a month ago cannot quicker action be taken so as to have justice done, particularly when such arbitrary powers are exercised?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I would not accept that suggestion. I think action has been taken reasonably speedily in view of the very complicated nature of the case.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN WORKERS (MEDICAL EXAMINATION)

Mr. Oliver: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the low medical grade of many of the foreign workers admitted into this country and the resulting high rate of sickness among these workers; and whether, in view of the present difficulties in staffing and finding accommodation in our hospitals and sanatoria, he will seek authority to have all foreign labour adequately medically examined in the country of origin before allowing their entry into this country.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): Foreign workers recruited under official schemes for which I am responsible are already required to undergo a general medical examination, and an X-Ray examination to detect tuberculosis, before they are accepted and brought to this country. In proportion to the numbers recruited, the cases of serious sickness have not been numerous, but as these workers are mostly displaced persons the privations which they have undergone may have resulted in some cases in breakdown in health after their arrival.

Mr. Oliver: Has my right hon. Friend consulted the regional hospital boards about the large percentage of foreign workers who come into the country and have recourse either to a hospital or a sanatorium? What is the standard of examination of people before they are admitted to the country?

Mr. Isaacs: As to the first part of that question I have not made such inquiries, because no evidence of any sort has come to me to show that there has been an exceptional number of people admitted to hospitals. If my hon. Friend has information of that sort I would like to look at it. As to the examination, I could not do justice to the matter in a short answer. I will send him a copy of the medical form which is used in this connection.

Mr. McCorquodale: Is it not a fact that the very great majority of the foreign workers have proved both healthy and willing?

Mr. Isaacs: It is only fair to them to say that I have had very little evidence of their breakdown in health. They perform very useful service, especially when one remembers that they are living in hostel accommodation.

Major Legge-Bourke: What happens to any of them who fail the medical examination when they get here? Are they sent back to the country of origin or kept in a hospital and cured here?

Mr. Isaacs: I do not know about the examination on arrival. There is certainly a check-over when they get here. I will look into the question with a view to finding out, and I will let the hon. and gallant Gentleman know.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

School Milk, Devonshire

Mr. Lambert: asked the Minister of Education how many schools in Devonshire are supplied with fresh milk and how many with dried milk.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Tomlinson): The latest figures available show that 820 schools in Devon receive liquid milk and 21 National dried milk.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any schools receive no milk at all?

Mr. Tomlinson: I could not say, without notice of the question.

Medical Inspections

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Education for what reason his regulations contained in S.R. & O., 1945, No. 1076, paragraph 49, provide

for only three routine medical inspections during a child's school life; and whether a further routine inspection at the age of seven plus will be provided for as soon as sufficient medical staff is available.

Mr. Tomlinson: When this regulation was made many medical officers were on Active Service. It provided for additional inspections at the Minister's direction or with his approval. The whole of the regulations mentioned are now under review, but we still have to be careful not to use too much manpower on routine inspections.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a good deal of concern in my division among teachers and head teachers who say that with the present size of classes it is not always possible for them to spot serious ailments, to sight and hearing for example, and can he hold out hope that when more medical staff is available, he will make provision for more regular inspections?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. It has always been the intention to get back to the routine inspections which were made prior to the reduction of the numbers owing to active service demands.

Mrs. Manning: Have teachers been made aware of their privilege of bringing before the doctor any cases they notice? Is that being pressed on them in view of the shortage?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir. They have been so informed, and we receive recommendations of that kind.

Technical Colleges, Middlesex (Typewriters)

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Minister of Education whether he is aware of the proposal of the Middlesex Education Committee to purchase 100 Olympia typewriters for use in its technical colleges; and if he will make inquiries as to the suitability of such machines in view of the difficulty in ensuring a supply of spare parts for repairs and renewals.

Mr. Tomlinson: I understand that the local education authority does not now intend to proceed with the purchase, and the second part of the Question does not, therefore, arise.

Mr. Skinnard: Can my right hon. Friend inform the House whether any other education authority is negotiating for the purchase of Soviet zone typewriters?

Mr. Tomlinson: Not that I am aware of, but there are a lot of negotiations about which I know nothing.

Technologists (Training)

Mr. M. Philips Price: asked the Minister of Education to what extent he estimates that the present arrangements for the training of technologists in this country are sufficient to meet the increasing demands which arise from the programme of Colonial Development and which will arise if Great Britain is to co-operate adequately with the United States of America in the implementation of President Truman's Fourth Point; and what collaboration there is to be with the United States of America in the training of their technologists here or the training of British technologists in the United States of America.

Mr. Tomlinson: As my hon. Friend is aware, steps have been taken and are contemplated for improving and extending facilities for technological training in this country. At present the plans for technical assistance towards the economic advancement of under-developed countries are still under consideration by the United Nations organisation and the specialised agencies. It is, therefore, impossible to gauge what the increased demands will be. In general, however, I have no reason to doubt that the arrangements in this country are capable of meeting reasonable demands. As regards the other part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which will be given him today by my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Mr. Philips Price: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the great importance of the American offer of co-operation in colonial development and the relative inadequacy at present of trained technologists for this purpose?

Mr. Tomlinson: That is being kept in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH CIVIL SERVANTS, DELHI

Mr. Erroll: asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what are the separate numbers and total salaries of British civil servants at present in Delhi working for British Government Departments; and what functions they carry out.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Gordon-Walker): The information is not immediately available and it will be necessary to refer to a number of other Government Departments. I will let the hon. Member have the information as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Messrs. A. Reyrolle &amp; Co., Ltd. (Report)

Mr. Norman Bower: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he intends to publish the report of his Department's inspector who is inquiring into certain matters connected with Messrs. A. Reyrolle & Co., Ltd.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): As I informed the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) on 21st June, certain representations on the matter had been received. These were referred to the inspector for a further report and I propose in due course to arrange for the inspector's reports to be published.

Mr. Erroll: Can the Minister say if the report will be published in full or whether only extracts will be published?

Mr. Wilson: I should like notice of that question, but I think the intention is to publish it in full.

Trade Agreements, Eastern Europe

Mr. Teeling: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the present position with regard to the negotiations for trade agreements with Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Mr. H. Wilson: Negotiations are in progress with these three countries but I am not in a position to make any statement at this stage.

Mr. Teeling: Is there any likelihood of a decision being reached between now and the date when the House meets again?

Mr. Wilson: I think it would be very unwise to attempt to speculate in that way when negotiations are still proceeding.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the granting of tourists' allowances of currency to visit Yugoslavia is one of the things which might result from the successful conclusion of a trade agreement with that country?

Mr. Wilson: I do not think that is one of the issues on which agreement has not yet been reached.

Paper and Board (Returns)

Mr. Swingler: asked the President of the Board of Trade why inquiries about stocks of paper and board are sent so frequently to manufacturers of boxes and cartons; and whether he will give instructions to reduce the number of inquiries.

Mr. H. Wilson: Certain returns are necessary in order to enable the Paper Control to assess the present rate of consumption of paper and board and the effect of the simplifications in paper licensing which came into force on 6th March and 3rd July of this year. Some of the returns are of a temporary character and I am doing all I can to reduce these to a minimum.

Mr. Swingler: As the Paper Control has a complete record of imports and exports and of the allocation of paper to manufacturers, is it necessary that the returns should be asked for at monthly intervals since it is known what the general position is?

Mr. Wilson: It is extremely important as soon as a control of this kind has been taken off to follow the position very carefully for a month or two to see if there is any big increase in consumption.

Copyright Law

Squadron-Leader Kinghorn: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the United Kingdom delegation only accepted

the provisions of Article II of the Brussels Copyright Convention, 1948, on the understanding that His Majesty's Government remained free to enact such legislation as they might consider necessary in the public interest to prevent or deal with any abuse of the monopoly rights conferred upon the owners of copyrights by the law of the United Kingdom, he can state in what way this conditional acceptance is to be implemented; and, in particular, what steps are to be taken to ascertain whether any such abuse exists or is possible under present arrangements and, if so what kind of legislation is necessary to deal with it.

Mr. H. Wilson: The object of the declaration referred to was to reserve the right of His Majesty's Government, notwithstanding the provisions of Article II, to take action to deal with any abuse of copyright monopoly rights, but it did not imply that any such legislation was actually called for in this country. Before the United Kingdom ratification of the Brussels Convention can be deposited, however, some amendments of existing copyright law will be necessary, and in this connection, I am considering whether it would be advisable to make a general inquiry into its working. The question whether there is any abuse in the exercise of the exclusive rights of public performance of musical works in this country such as would justify legislation, is, of course, one of the matters which could be dealt with in such inquiry.

Factories, New Towns

Mr. Albu: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many firms have, through his suggestion, agreed to establish factories in the new towns.

Mr. H. Wilson: If, as I assume, my hon. Friend is referring to the London new towns, my Department have approved the proposals of eight firms to establish new factories in these towns.

Mr. Albu: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that in the direction of new factories, the correct balance is being held between the new towns and the development areas?

Mr. Wilson: Yes, Sir, and I am in close touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning on this matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — CANCER RESEARCH

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Lord President of the Council whether, in view of the serious increase in deaths from cancer during the last 30 years, he will make a statement as to the research which is now being conducted under the auspices of his department, or with his encouragement; and, in particular, what joint research or co-operation with America is taking place.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Research on cancer forms a very important part of the programme of the Medical Research Council; it is also promoted, with official encouragement, by bodies such as the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the British Empire Cancer Campaign. I understand that there is particularly close co-operation in this field between British workers and their colleagues in America.

Mr. Lipson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many research workers are engaged and how much money is being spent on this purpose?

Mr. Morrison: I could not state the number of research workers without notice, but I can say that the Medical Research Council's expenditure on cancer research was only about £6,000 up to and including 1945–46, it rose to £12,000 in 1946–47 and to £24,000 in 1947–48, and it is estimated at £145,000 for 1948–49 and at perhaps £200,000 in 1949–50. Other expenditures are being made. I assure the House that it need not worry that financial limitations would be imposed on an important matter of this kind. It is a question of getting to the roots of the problem.

Brigadier Medlicott: In view of the rather disturbing figures, which have now risen to some 80,000 deaths per year from cancer, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be widespread support for the fullest extension of research that he can encourage, especially as the figures which he has quoted seem rather modest in face of the terrible nature of the problem?

Mr. Morrison: I appreciate that, but real progress is being made in research and the House may rest assured that the limiting factor is not finance. It is

knowledge. We are all impressed with the great need to do everything we can about it.

Mr. Tolley: Will not my right hon. Friend agree that up to a point, it is a question of finance, because the Medical Research Council can only go into these matters and make investigations scientifically and otherwise according to the amount of money which they feel they have at their disposal? Will he considerably increase the grant from the Government to the Council so that they can proceed more actively with this work?

Mr. Morrison: I am sorry but I could not disagree more with my hon. Friend. The mere voting of money does not do anything. The thing is to find a good case for the spending of money. That is what I am after.

Sir Stanley Reed: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny an allegation which is made that, despite these extensive inquiries and all the skill and devotion of those engaged in them, no real progress has been made in relation to the discovery of the causation of cancer?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. I would not say that no real progress has been made. Progress towards the big fundamental solution is disappointing, but real progress is being made into various phases of cancer research.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Feedingstuffs

Colonel Ropner: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider increasing the ration of feedingstuffs allowed to farmers who rear calves but do not sell milk.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Thomas Williams): I am afraid I cannot see my way to alter the present conditions for the granting of rations for calves under six months old but the rations for calves between six and twelve months old which I announced yesterday will be available for all calves irrespective of whether the owner is selling milk.

Colonel Ropner: Does the Minister think that that arrangement will be adequate?

Mr. Williams: I believe so, according to all the advice I can get from the experts.

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will enlarge the scope of the extended feedingstuffs rationing scheme to include occupiers of half an acre of agricultural land.

Mr. T. Williams: No, Sir. There is no room on holdings of this size for the growing of the proportion of feedingstuffs which the occupier has to provide for his stock under the scheme.

Mr. Collins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that holders of precisely one acre are debarred from the scheme, and could he not give his feedingstuffs officers some discretion in this matter, because it is quite certain that some of these smallholders can grow sufficient feedingstuffs for a small quantity of poultry?

Mr. Williams: It so happens that my officers have absolute discretion. Where an occupier can show that he can produce approximately 50 per cent. of the feedingstuffs he requires, he is able to get his ration.

Mr. Collins: But is my right hon. Friend aware that his instructions are not always understood, because some of his feedingstuffs officers make it a reason for refusal if the holding is only one acre?

Mr. Williams: All my instructions are written in such elementary language that they ought to be understood.

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture what proportion of this year's wheat crop farmers will be allowed to retain for feeding to poultry and other livestock; and if he will review after harvest the need for retaining any restrictions on the use of home-grown grain required for the expansion of livestock production.

Mr. T. Williams: Farmers will be permitted to retain up to one-quarter of this year's wheat crop for feeding to stock, including both millable and non-millable wheat and tailings. Wheat is the only grain crop which the farmer is now required to sell, and in view of the urgent need to save dollars I can hold out no hope of further concessions in respect of this year's crop.

Mr. Hurd: In view of the fact that the Minister is asking us now to grow 2¾ million acres of wheat, which will be a heavy call on our land, is he aware that he would be more likely to reach that target if he would allow farmers to retain some of the crop for the expansion of livestock.

Mr. Williams: The question of the hon. Gentleman relates to this year's crop where we are hopelessly behind the target.

Mr. Drayson: Can the Minister say whether he has considered the question of allowing farmers a free market in the proportion of the grain which the farmers are allowed to keep for themselves?

Mr. Williams: Not while a rationing system of feedingstuffs is inevitable.

Mr. Drayson: What possible objection could there be to that?

Mr. Williams: Because there is a rationing scheme in existence and there are many farmers, particularly in the Division of the hon. Gentleman, who can grow practically nothing for themselves in the form of feedingstuffs and so have to be dealt with out of the general rationing pool scheme.

River Irwell (Flooding)

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps are being taken to prevent the flooding of the River Irwell at Peel Bridge, Ramsbottom.

Mr. T. Williams: I understand that the Rivers Mersey and Irwell Catchment Board are steadily moving upstream with their river clearance scheme for the River Irwell and are now within two miles of Peel Bridge, Ramsbottom. That point will be reached as soon as possible but it is essential that the normal practice of working upstream should be followed.

Hop-picking (Labour)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that, owing to the action of some education authorities in prosecuting parents whose children are absent from school whilst with their parents in the hop fields, hop growers are experiencing great difficulty in recruiting the necessary labour; and what steps he proposes to take to overcome the difficulty.

Mr. T. Williams: I am aware that in Herefordshire and Worcestershire hop-growers are concerned about the effect which the threat of prosecution will have on the hop-pickers coming from industrial areas. The normal school holidays in a few of the areas concerned will cover the whole of the hop-picking season; and although in other areas they will cover only the first part of the season, parents may also obtain permission for their children to stay away from school for an extra fortnight to accompany them on holiday. It will therefore be possible for the usual arrangements to operate for the greater part of the season; but there will still remain about 10 days at the end of September when parents who kept their children away from school to go hop-picking would be open to prosecution. My Department is considering, with the hop-growers and the other Departments concerned, what steps can be taken to fill this potential gap in the labour supply.

Sacks (Supplies)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture what provision has been made for an adequate supply of sacks to meet the needs of farmers using combine harvesters who have to market their grain immediately; and what advice he can give to farmers in the Southern counties who are unable to obtain all the sacks they require.

Mr. T. Williams: My Department offered two-bushel hessian sacks to all known owners of combine harvesters to augment the supply of the larger sack obtained on hire from the railways and the usual sack hire firms. All farmers who ordered hessian sacks from the Minister have been supplied, but owing to the unusually early harvest there is an abnormal last minute demand. I have, therefore, made arrangements for a further supply of hessian sacks and farmers who wish to buy them should communicate either with my Department or their county agricultural executive committee.

Mr. Hurd: I am sure that farmers in the Southern counties will welcome that action of the Minister, but could he help them further by getting the Minister of Food to co-operate in so far as he may have spare sacks available which

can be put to use with these combine harvesters?

Mr. Williams: I suppose that if my Department have not sufficient sacks, and the Ministry of Food have some, they will be readily available.

Allotments, Lambeth (Tenure)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will arrange for allotment holders in Brock-well Park, Lambeth, to continue the cultivation of their allotments.

Mr. T. Williams: Early this year the London County Council proposed that a large proportion of the temporary allotment sites in their parks should be released after the present season and, notwithstanding our food difficulties, I felt that their claims for the early restoration of the land for sports and general recreational purposes could no longer be rigidly denied. I was, however, able to arrange that only half the total acreage under allotments should be released at the end of the year, the first to go being in the more congested areas and that the remainder should continue in cultivation for the present. The selection of the land for early release has been left to the Council and, in the circumstances, I should not feel justified in intervening in the case of Brockwell Park.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does my right hon. Friend satisfy himself in all such cases that the recreational facilities are being so seriously prejudiced as to outweigh the need for growing more food?

Mr. Williams: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that I am constantly fighting a rearguard action, my partiality being always in favour of food production.

Royal Shows (Ministry's Exhibit)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many personnel of the National Agricultural Advisory Service were employed at his Department's exhibit at the 1948 and 1949 Royal Shows, respectively; and what was the total cost of the exhibit in each year.

Mr. T. Williams: Approximately 50 N.A.A.S. officers were in attendance each day at the Royal Show this year and a somewhat larger number in 1948,


as demonstrators on the many different features of the N.A.A.S. section of the Ministry's exhibit. The cost of the Ministry's exhibit was approximately £7,500 in 1948 and is estimated at roughly the same figure for 1949.

Marginal Production Scheme

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture to what extent in the administration of the marginal production scheme account is taken of the financial means and status of the farmers who propose to undertake land reclaimation.

Mr. T. Williams: When considering applications for grants under this scheme, county agricultural executive committees have to decide whether the carrying out of the proposed operations without assistance would prejudice the ordinary work of the farm, or in other words, whether the proposed improvement would be unduly costly in relation to a farmer's existing income and capital. This does not imply elaborate means tests. Committees usually have sufficient information of a farmer's financial resources.

Mr. Hurd: Will the Minister give us an assurance that where a farmer is prepared to undertake work that would not give an economic return, his own means outside farming will not prevent him from getting assistance from the Ministry?

Mr. Williams: I had better not go outside the reply I have given. It is a delicate operation but I can assure the hon. Member that county executive committees are administering this scheme as sympathetically as they can.

Mrs. Manning: Did the first answer of my right hon. Friend mean that if it were found that expenditure on marginal land would interfere with the ordinary work of the farmer, such a man would get extra financial assistance? Does it mean that?

Mr. Williams: No, the very opposite.

Mr. Turton: Is the Minister aware that in certain areas schemes which were qualifying for the marginal production scheme last year are being turned down this year although the farmers are not wealthy men; and is he also aware that there is a great deal of resentment amongst bona fide farmers at this type of means test?

Mr. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to supply me with individual cases, I shall be happy to have them looked at.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Income Tax (Remissions)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer under what provisions of the Income Tax Acts are individual hardship cases dealt with by him.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): It has long been recognised that a power of remitting tax in cases where the full claim cannot be obtained or cannot reasonably be enforced is inherent in the general powers for the management of the revenue which are vested by Section 57 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, and Section 1 of the Inland Revenue Regulation Act, 1890, in the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. In individual cases the Commissioners normally exercise their own discretion, but the approval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is obtained for any remission of general application. All remissions of tax are reported to the Comptroller and Auditor-General for the information of the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Why, then, has the right hon. Gentleman just sent me a letter about a constituent aged 83 who has been charged for tax incurred six years ago which was not claimed at the time by the mistake of the Inland Revenue authorities? Why has he told me there is no power in him to remit this claim?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Without knowing off-hand the details of the case which the right hon. Gentleman quotes, the answer is that it is generally the law that there is no power to remit. However, as the House is well aware, during our Debates recently on the Finance Bill, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under pressure from all sides of the House, indicated that certain sections for certain reasons would receive discretionary treatment.

Mr. Stanley: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, may I now resubmit this case to him, and ask him to exercise his discretion upon it?

Mr. Marples: Would the right hon. Gentleman clearly specify whether the power of remission of tax lies with the Crown or with the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I think I have made it quite clear in the rather long answer I have given. It resides, through the Acts I have mentioned, in the Inland Revenue under the control and supervision of the Chancellor of the day. If I may add this, the late Mr. Neville Chamberlain made this quite clear in 1937 in reply to similar questions.

Sterling Debts

Mr. Marples: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much sterling as at 30th June, 1949, did we owe to each of our creditor countries.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Douglas Jay): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 21st September last to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre).

Mr. Marples: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that answer was a most unsatisfactory one, and if he cannot give figures for individual countries, will he give the figures for the main area?

Mr. Jay: We already give the figures for the totals in the Balance of Payments White Paper every six months.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Are the Government considering proposals which have been made in some quarters that, with safeguards to ourselves in the administration of the dollars arising, these credits might be negotiated with the United States?

Mr. Jay: That is quite a different question.

Mining Companies, Gold Coast

Mr. Teeling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recommendations he has recently received for those connected with the Gold Coast concerning assistance to be given to the mining companies; and when he will be able to give an answer to these recommendations.

Mr. Jay: The Chancellor of the Exchequer was recently asked by the

London Advisory Committee of the Gold Coast Chamber of Mines to receive a deputation. Before agreeing to do so, however, he asked the Chairman to submit a statement in writing, and this is still awaited.

Icelandic Trawlers (Loans)

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why permission was given to the Icelandic Government to raise the recent loans to build ten trawlers, in view of the fact that the British fleet with the projected building will be sufficient or more than sufficient to supply all the fish we need.

Mr. Jay: I assume the hon. Member is referring to the £1¼ million 4½ per cent. Iceland Sterling Stock, 1960–69, for which applications were invited on 21st July last. Authority was given for the issue of this stock in order to assist Iceland, as an allied country in the sterling area, to modernise its fishing fleet.

Mr. Shepherd: Can the Economic Secretary say what Government Departments were consulted before this authority was given, and will he tell the House whether the British Trawler Federation, vitally affected by it, were consulted over its issue?

Mr. Jay: The Government consult all the appropriate Government Departments in all these cases, but I should have thought that the modernisation of the fishing fleet of a country which is a member both of the sterling area and of O.E.E.C. was a very desirable object.

Mr. Shepherd: Would not the hon. Gentleman also think that the preservation of the livelihood of our own people was equally important, and will he answer my question: which Government Departments were consulted specifically—was the Minister of Agriculture consulted; and secondly, were the British Trawler Federation consulted?

Mr. Jay: If the Iceland fishing fleet becomes more efficient it should be able to sell its produce here at lower prices and, therefore, the livelihood of our own people will be assisted.

Mr. Shepherd: That is no answer to my question.

Scientists (University Training)

Mr. Philips Price: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to what extent he estimates that the present arrangements for an increased supply of scientists from the universities is sufficient to meet the increasing demands which arise from the programme of Colonial development and which will arise if Great Britain is to co-operate adequately with the United States of America in the implementation of President Truman's Fourth Point; and what collaboration there is to be with the United States of America in the training of their scientists in our universities or the training of British scientists in the United States universities.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The Report of the Committee on Scientific Manpower recommended that the annual pre-war output of scientists from the universities should be doubled by 1955. That Committee, in framing their estimates of the future demand for scientists, took account of the needs of the Colonial Service. The pre-war numbers of university students in science and technology were nearly doubled by 1947–48 and numbers have continued to rise since then. I am satisfied that no greater expansion would have been practicable without a sacrifice of quality. As to the second part of the Question, arrangements have just been concluded for sending 50 British scientists and technicians to the United States with the assistance of the Economic Co-operation Administration for two years of graduate study.

Mr. Philips Price: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind with his colleague the Minister of Education the importance of President Truman's offer in the fourth point of his inaugural address to assist in colonial development throughout the world; and is my right hon. Friend satisfied that we have the necessary scientific strength to put into force any demands that may come from that quarter?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly, we shall bear that in mind. As my answer indicates, we are fully alive to the need for building up the number of scientists for this kind of work.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these 50

graduates are going to American universities or to institutes of technology such as that in Massachusetts?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Not without notice.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the very urgent need for scientists and the fact that many of the intelligent men are Communists and fellow-travellers, can we take it that no witch hunt will be directed against them?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The hon. Member can take it that we shall regard the men as scientists and not as politicians.

Mr. Gallacher: Very sensible.

Mrs. Manning: Can my right hon. Friend consult with the Minister of Education on the question of trying to persuade some biologists to go back into the schools to teach biology, because in past years this vicious circle has resulted in not having sufficient good scientific biologists to send to the Colonies and other places?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I think that that question should be more properly directed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, who I am quite sure, will take note of the point which has just been made.

Compensation Claim, Hull

Mr. Odey: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that as a result of a dispute between the War Damage Commission and the War Department over the question of responsibility for compensation to Mr. Appleton, of Meadowcroft, Elloughton, for damage done to property in Fern Grove, Hull, Mr. Appleton is not receiving the 45 per cent. statutory increase on value payments, thus involving him in a loss of £900; and whether, in view of the long time this dispute has continued, he will now consult with the Secretary of State for War, with a view to settling it, so that the full rate of compensation is paid.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I have already written to the hon. Member about this case. The compensation is payable under the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, and not under the War Damage Act, 1943. The permitted increase in value payments under the latter Act is not,


therefore, payable. I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War that an offer of compensation under the former Act has been made.

Mr. Odey: Would not the Financial Secretary agree that there should be equality of treatment as between one property owner and another so that, whether the damage was caused and inflicted by enemy action or by the War Department or, as in this case, by both, there should be equality of compensation?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: This is not a War Damage Commission case and, therefore, it is not for me to comment. The hon. Gentleman must direct his questions on this matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.

Surplus Books, Service Departments

Mr. Swingler: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many of the surplus books received from the Service Departments for disposal have been returned direct to the publishers for pulping; and what agreements are in existence whereby books not required by the Services shall be so returned.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: None, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: Will my right hon. Friend look at this point again? Is he aware that during the war certain agreements were made between publishing houses and the Service Departments that the books were supplied to the Forces only on condition that they were returned to the publishers for pulping, and will he inquire whether this is the reason for the leakage of certain books which ought to be coming to His Majesty's Stationery Office?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Where books are surplus they are, in the first instance, offered to the publisher concerned. If he does not want them, a different situation, of course, arises, but we do give the publishers concerned an opportunity to re-buy the books.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will consider giving a greater discount than 33⅓ per cent. on books from the Service Departments offered to public libraries.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The discounts vary according to the nature and condition of the books and in some cases exceed 33⅓ per cent.

Mr. Swingler: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the discount in the majority of cases is approximately 33⅓ per cent., and that this is the discount which an ordinary bookseller normally gets on a new book; and does not he think that the discount ought to reach 50 or 60 per cent. in the case of most of these books?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: It is higher in some instances, as I have indicated, but His Majesty's Stationery Office must, of course, obtain the best price. If those concerned find that the discount allowed is not enough, I am sure they would say so immediately.

Civil Service (Pensions Payments)

Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will give Civil Service pensioners the option to receive their pensions monthly or quarterly.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: They already have this option, and are so informed when they retire.

Sir I. Fraser: Is that option universal?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes, Sir. I have a copy of the form here. Those who complete it are asked to say at what intervals they would like payments to be made.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Can they subsequently alter that option, or is it irrevocable?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I do not think so. On the other hand, it would be silly if they were given the opportunity of changing their minds every few weeks.

Sir I. Fraser: If there is hardship in cases where a person has to wait three months for money which is paid in arrear, could the option be changed?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly. If an individual concerned asks first for payment to be made quarterly and then finds he prefers it monthly, we are quite willing to pay him monthly.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE, METROPOLITAN POLICE (GRATUITY)

Sir David Robertson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why Mrs. White of Streatham has been refused a gratuity for her services with the Metropolitan Police, which amounted in total to 16 years including continuous service from 27th April, 1936, to 16th January, 1949, which was brought to an end by illness caused by war service and day and night shifts of up to 16 hours on end.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): The superannuation conditions for civilians employed in connection with the Metropolitan Police follow the corresponding conditions for civil servants under the Superannuation Acts. The rules which apply to the granting of compassionate gratuities to unestablished staff who retire for reasons of ill-health do not allow Mrs. White's earlier periods of service to be reckoned, and her last period of service is less than the qualifying period of 15 years prescribed by law for the grant of a gratuity.

Sir D. Robertson: Why is the Home Secretary relying on a departmental code of rules issued 14 years ago? Did that code envisage the kind of service Mrs. White gave during the war and for which she suffered?

Mr. Ede: I have every sympathy with Mrs. White but, unfortunately, I am bound by the statutes.

Sir D. Robertson: Since the war broke out in 1939, the right hon. Gentleman has been endowed with boundless powers and he could give this lady a gratuity for 15 years' service but, because it was not wholly continuous service, he stands on the rule written by a civil servant 14 years ago?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I am bound by the statutes.

Sir D. Robertson: Why not change them?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEPORTATIONS (HOME SECRETARY'S POWERS)

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has given consideration

to the question of seeking, by legislation or otherwise, powers to deport to their country of origin persons seeking to disrupt the normal industrial life of Britain; and what conclusion he has now reached.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation enabling him, in suitable cases, to refuse permission to land and to deport British subjects not domiciled in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Ede: I already have power to deport any alien against whom I deem it to be conducive to the public good to make a deportation order and I have not hesitated to exercise this power. Any extension of this power to cover the deportation of British subjects would open wide issues on which I am not prepared to pronounce at the present time.

Mr. Brown: In view of the happenings in the London docks in the last few weeks, are the Government giving consideration to this matter at all, or is this reply calculated to dispose of the matter indefinitely?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I stand by what I said last week; that this is an exceedingly complicated problem which I am certain would involve differential treatment. I deport the alien because I believe that his presence is not conducive to the public good and I do not have to account for it, but I cannot think that this House would give me power to apply that to Lord Beaverbrook.

Mr. Fletcher: While appreciating the seriousness of the principles involved, may I ask the Home Secretary if he would tell the House whether he is satisfied that even in a state of emergency the Government ought not to have power to refuse permission to land to a person who comes from another part of the Commonwealth for purely subversive purposes?

Mr. Ede: If the purposes are subversive as defined by the law, I have appropriate powers to deal with subversive activities, but those limits are very carefully prescribed in the law and this House, I suggest, must be careful not to get into a panic and take action which


might very considerably alter our position inside the great Commonwealth to which we belong.

Earl Winterton: Would the right hon. Gentleman say what is the significance of his totally unnecessary reference to Lord Beaverbrook?

Mr. Ede: He is a nobleman who was born in Canada and I want to point out that I do not think the House would give me the same power to deport a person born in Canada—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why mention him?"]—because he is a very conspicuous example—that they would give me in regard to persons born outside His Majesty's Dominions.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that most of our colonies are in a constant state of emergency so that we are repeatedly deporting from them British subjects, colonial citizens, who come here to the only place open to them, so that, if he took up either of these fantastic proposals and adopted such powers, British citizens would be suspended in mid-ocean between the colonies and the home country?

Mr. Ede: I am not responsible for what happens in the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Is not the right answer that the trade unions should themselves take action in regard to these men?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. This goes far wider than trade union activities and disputes. It is a very fundamental matter with which the position of this country in the Commonwealth is most vitally linked.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: While holding no brief for these people, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman exercises these powers entirely on his own initiative? Are any judicial proceedings gone through, and is there any appeal against his actions? While no doubt the House have every confidence in him, a successor may not command the same confidence.

Mr. Ede: I have the same powers as have been exercised ever since 1920. As

far as I know there has been no complaint at all about the way in which those powers have been exercised by my predecessors, or by myself.

Mr. Lipson: Is the right hon. Gentleman able to explain how it conies about that agitators from other countries are able to persuade sensible British workers to take industrial action?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I am not here to explain the mental processes of other people, but the House will get itself into serious difficulties if it tries to deal with this very wide and general issue on particular cases that may recently have excited attention.

Mr. Gallacher: As one who is, like several Members of the Government, of alien blood, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman would quote to the hon. Members putting these Questions the pertinent paragraph in Magna Charta that they are anxious to tear up and destroy?

Mr. Edgar Granville: While I can understand why the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to deport Lord Beaverbrook—which I thought a very unfortunate reference—may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman has been in close consultation with the Canadian Government at Ottawa since the docks dispute on this question, as it affects both countries?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. It is not my duty to be in touch with the Canadian Government, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations was so in contact.

Mr. Gallacher: May I have an answer about the right of freedom to enter or leave the country without hindrance?

Mr. Ede: May I point out to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) that Magna Charta did not apply to Scotland?

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order, the Minister must not get away with that. I prefaced my question by saying that I was of alien blood.

Mr. Ede: I do not see that that alters the answer I have given. I do not think Magna Charta is involved in the issues before us.

At the end of Questions—

Captain Crookshank: On a point of Order. It will be within your recollection, Mr. Speaker, and that of hon. Members, that in reply to Question No. 71, the subject of which was the deportation of undesirable aliens, the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] Question No. 71 did arise, and was a question of deporting undesirable aliens. In the course of the reply the deportation of British subjects was raised. The Home Secretary, possibly in a jocular way, did observe that he could not deport Lord Beaverbrook. I put it to your, Sir, even if that may be the fact, the quite uncalled for introduction of the name of a Member of the other House in a Question which dealt with persons concerned with subversive activities is something which is liable to be very much misunderstood. Indeed, as it is out of Order to make references to the conduct of Members of the other House, except on a substantive Motion; as it is also out of Order to make reference or use abusive language with regard to Members of another place, I put it to you, Sir, that the Home Secretary's remarks were in fact out of Order; and the least he should do would be to withdraw absolutely and wholeheartedly, and express regret for the frivolous introduction of the name of a distinguished Member of the other House.

Mr. Ede: I do not think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has quite accurately given the context in which my remark was made. I was dealing with the difficulty that might be presented if the law relating to aliens was applied, as I was pressed to apply it last week, to British subjects not born in this country; and I gave as I thought the most distinguished example of what might happen—[HON. MEMBERS: "NO, withdraw."]—that if the House took the same view about British subjects as it has done about aliens, I might be in the position to deport a certain nobleman. If that remark has given any offence to anybody—may I say that from my knowledge of Lord Beaver-brook I doubt if it would have given offence to him—but if it has given offence to anybody, I am the last person who would desire that personal issues that give offence to anyone in this House should be raised. And I certainly unreservedly withdraw any imputation that

Lord Beaverbrook is other than a good and useful citizen of this country as well as of the great Dominion in which he was born. But I do not want it to be thought that I intended anything I said to hold him up to opprobrium in any way.

Captain Crookshank: I am sure that every hon. Member will be delighted to hear what the Home Secretary said, but, of course, I did raise this as a point of Order. I hoped, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps you could rule that this was something which should not have been said in order that it may never happen again.

Mr. Ede: I should be the last person to desire to prolong this matter on the merits of the case, but I should not be prepared to admit that what I said was out of Order. It might have been injudicious and I am prepared to leave it at that.

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Mr. Gallacher: Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I should be allowed to talk if I want to. I have been asked for a Ruling. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman raised a point of Order about a reference to the name of Lord Beaverbrook. Frankly, it is not forbidden to mention the name of a Member of another place. It depends upon the capacity in which the name is mentioned. For instance, I have ruled before in connection with some of these newspaper proprietors, that as newspaper proprietors their names can be mentioned. They must not be attacked as Members of another place or in reference to their duties there. It is hard to lay down an exact Ruling. I think the rule is that one must not attack Members in their capacity as Members of another place. If they have another capacity, then they can be mentioned in connection with that.
If I might make a personal observation, I thought myself that the Home Secretary was giving an example of a very distinguished Canadian statesman, and showing how absurd it would be to have power to deport somebody of that sort. Therefore, while I agree that the Home Secretary was right and wise to withdraw any imputation that might be felt, I cannot lay down a definite rule that the name of a Member of another place should never be mentioned but


certainly not in his capacity as a Member of the other branch of the legislature.

Mr. Gallacher: Mr. Speaker, may I seek your indulgence for a moment? I cannot understand what has happened here. Yesterday I sought advice about whether I could raise a question about very offensive remarks made by the Home Secretary about me, about Members of the Government and about other Members of this House, when he talked of people of alien blood without English descent. I consider that that is one of the most offensive phrases ever used in this House.

Mr. Speaker: That has nothing to do with this point of Order.

Mr. Gallacher: I demand that it should be withdrawn.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not this matter fall within your Ruling the other day, Mr. Speaker, in the case of a Question asked by the hon. Member for Streatham (Sir D. Robertson) in which he imputed a criminal offence to named persons who had not been charged, had not been convicted, and who had no opportunity of defence?

Mr. Speaker: That has nothing to do with this point of Order. We are talking about Members of another place. That point of Order has nothing to do with that.

Oral Answers to Questions — CRUELTY TO WILD ANIMALS (INQUIRY)

Mr. Symonds: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Committee of Inquiry on Cruelty to Wild Animals will hear evidence in public.

Mr. Ede: This is a matter for the Committee to decide.

Mr. Symonds: As it is desirable that our constituents should be familiar with all the evidence on both sides in these matters of controversy and as such evidence had better be assimilated in small doses while it is still fresh, rather than in one large lump by publication after the inquiry is over, will my right hon. Friend think of informing the chairman that this House would welcome a public inquiry following the good example of the Royal Commission on gambling?

Mr. Ede: I think the best thing will be for the Committee to consider the answer I gave and the supplementary question my hon. Friend has put.

Earl Winterton: Is there not a very important constitutional issue here, that this House and no Minister of this House has any right to interfere with how a Committee of the kind conducts its business? Is it not for the Committee to decide that?

Mr. Ede: That is what I first said.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Is my right hon. Friend aware that holding the meetings of this Committee in public would go a long way towards removing the doubts of those organisations which have expressed their apprehension that one of the members of the Committee is a former master of foxhounds and another is veterinary surgeon to two packs of hounds?

Mr. Ede: A committee which is to inquire into a subject of this kind must be representative of all phases of public opinion and I have no doubt that some people who do not take the same view as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) view with dissatisfaction the presence of other members of the Committee.

Brigadier Head: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are a large number of vermin who would like to air some very articulate grievances before this Committee?

Mr. Greenwood: Does my right hon. Friend's first answer imply that it is now his intention to have a burglar on every bench of magistrates?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, because this Committee will not pronounce on the issue. It would, however, occasionally be of advantage to a Bench to have a burglar as an expert witness.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he thinks of the suggestion made by his back bencher that a veterinary surgeon is prima facie in favour of cruelty?

Mr. Ede: I did not draw that conclusion from the point which my hon. Friend put.

Mr. Strauss: On what grounds—

Mr. Cecil Poole: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for an hon. Member to refer to another hon. Member of this House as "his back bencher"?

Mr. Speaker: That is a new point to me. I cannot say without giving the matter consideration.

Mr. Strauss: May I at once withdraw the word "his," if I made that slip? Was there any other possible interpretation of the hon. Member's objection to a veterinary surgeon sitting on this Committee?

Mr. Ede: As I said in reply to an earlier supplementary question to another Question, I cannot be responsible for the processes of other people's minds.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINING SUBSIDENCE (COMPENSATION)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Miss JENNIE LEE:

77. To ask the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he can now make a statement on the report of the Committee on Mining Subsidence.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Gaitskell): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the permission of the House, I should like to answer Question No. 77.
I am grateful to the Committee on Mining Subsidence for their detailed report on a complicated subject. After careful consideration of the report the conclusion has been reached that legislation to implement the whole of the Committee's recommendations would involve a number of difficult administrative problems and would have far-reaching financial implications which require further study. The Government are, however, aware of the need for action to alleviate the most serious hardships which occur owing to subsidence due to the mining of coal and propose to introduce legislation as soon as possible to provide a measure of compensation in respect of small dwelling-houses which suffer damage from this cause.

Miss Lee: While my right hon. Friend's answer will give great satisfaction to private householders, I would like to ask whether it means that at no future time is legislation contemplated to ease the rate burden on those areas, or are people, because they live in mining areas, to go on paying additional rates?

Mr. Gaitskell: It is intended that the legislation to which I have referred shall cover local authority houses as well as private houses. As to the question of further legislation I cannot make a statement at the moment. The matter is still under consideration.

Mr. Gallacher: While it is desirable that the people who own houses should receive consideration and compensation—there are many of them in my constituency—there are also roads which are affected. Does what the Minister has told us allow for any assistance to be given to local authorities to deal with such roads? There are some roads which are in a terrible condition; as a result of subsidence, it is almost impossible for the lightest traffic to go over them. Will the Minister deal with that phase of the matter?

Mr. Gaitskell: As I have already explained, this Bill will relate only to dwelling-houses. The question of any further Measure has not yet been settled.

Sir I. Fraser: On what ground of equity will this compensation be confined to small dwelling-houses, leaving out medium-sized houses and small businesses and all others who may suffer?

Mr. Gaitskell: Because I think it important to deal urgently with the most serious element of hardship.

Mr. C. Poole: Is it not unfortunate that this great problem should be tackled piecemeal? Is not there a very real danger that if we have one Bill dealing with a portion of it, action in regard to the rest of this serious problem will be relegated to some obscure future date?

Mr. Gaitskell: No, Sir. There is no question of any immediate legislation to deal with the larger issue but that does not seem to me to be a reason for not dealing with this urgent matter of hardship.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: Who is it intended shall provide compensation in the case of small dwelling-houses?

Mr. Gaitskell: The precise arrangements have not yet been settled. The National Coal Board will be directly responsible for paying compensation but in all probability there will be a Treasury grant to assist them.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: In view of the large number of houses owned by local authorities, such as Fife County Council, can we be assured that they will be consulted by the Government in the drafting of this legislation?

Mr. Gaitskell: Yes, I think I can give that assurance, although, as I explained, the legislation will refer to dwelling-houses.

Mr. Oliver: Will compensation be paid on the basis of the recommendations contained in the report?

Mr. Gaitskell: I cannot at the moment say exactly what the criteria will be.

Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Minister of Agriculture with a view to seeing what can be done to implement the Committee's recommendations about land drainage, which is considerably affected, and about which protests have been made by the drainage authorities?

Mr. Gaitskell: That is a matter which will come up in the course of further consideration of the report, and consultations are taking place between my Department and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Miss Lee: Can my right hon. Friend give any indication when the legislation to deal with the matter may be expected?

Mr. Gaitskell: I can only say that we shall get on with the job as quickly as possible.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Eden: Will the Leader of the House tell us what is to be the Business for the week after the Summer Recess?

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Yes, Sir. The Business for the first week after the Summer Recess will be as follows:

Tuesday, 18th October—Committee and remaining stages of the Overseas Resources Development Bill;

Report and Third Reading of the Sea Fish Industry Bill;

Second Reading of the New Forest Bill [Lords] and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.

Wednesday, 19th October—Report and Third Reading of the National Health Service (Amendment) Bill and the Coast Protection Bill [Lords].

Thursday, 20th October—Second Reading of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill [Lords] and the Nurses (Scotland) Bill [Lords], and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolutions.

Friday, 21st October—Second Reading of the Local Government Boundary Commission (Dissolution) Bill.

Mr. Eden: Will the Lord President give us an early day after our return in the autumn for a discussion of the Master-man Report, and could he, in addition, give the House an undertaking—I hope that he will be able to do so—that no restrictions will be enforced until the House has had an opportunity to discuss that report?

Mr. Morrison: The Government are considering the representations made by the Staff Side at a meeting of the National Whitley Council held on 22nd July. Meanwhile, it has been agreed that no action will be taken to put the Committee's recommendations into effect until another meeting of the National Whitley Council takes place. In the circumstances I think that the House will agree that any Debate at this stage would be inappropriate, and it would perhaps be wiser to wait and see what the result of those discussions are.

Mr. Eden: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind what I was anxious to safeguard. There is to be this further meeting of the Whitley Council. I should like to be assured that no action will follow that meeting until this House has had a chance to examine and discuss the report.

Mr. Morrison: I will consider that. My mind will be partly influenced by the result of those discussions, but I shall keep in mind the point made by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Bing: Will my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of giving time after the Recess for a Debate on the Motion about tied public houses standing in the names of many of my hon. Friends and a few of my right hon. Friends and in the names of Members of other parties and of Independent Members?

[That this House condemns the Tied Public House system, as at present operated, in that it deprives the customer of his freedom of choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages alike, tends to restrict the provision of food and accommodation, increases by monopolist practices the price of refreshments to the customer and does not furnish sufficient security of tenure to the publican; and that therefore this House calls upon His Majesty's Government to inquire into the Tied House system and other restrictive practices of Brewers and to introduce, where necessary, remedial legislation.]

Mr. Morrison: I am glad to hear of my hon. Friend's representative character. We shall give the point consideration, but I think we shall have a fair amount of Business when we come back, and my hon. Friend must forgive me if I do not make a firm promise. We shall keep the point in mind.

Mr. Eden: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman about the Auxiliary and Reserve Forces Bill, which he may remember was given a Second Reading on 2nd June? That is quite a while ago. May we know when the Government propose to take the further stages of that Bill?

Mr. Morrison: I hope fairly early after we return.

Mr. Edgar Granville: In view of the fact that scores of East Anglian villages have no water, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will treat as urgent the question of giving us an opportunity after the Recess to discuss the supply of water in rural areas? Further, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman can tell the House when it is intended to take the Adjournment Motion, and if it is the intention of the Government to make a statement on any arrangements for the recall of the House during the Summer Recess if there should be a crisis emergency?

Mr. Morrison: The Adjournment Motion will be taken tomorrow, and the Government will, of course, give proper assurances on the point which the hon. Member has mentioned. With regard to water, I think we had better wait until our return. It may be that we shall have a heavy rainfall by then, which would, I think, be welcomed by all.

Brigadier Head: Does the Lord President recall with regard to the Auxiliary and Reserve Forces Bill, that the House had only a week to consider this very long Bill because it was said to be of considerable urgency? Has something arisen to lessen that urgency, or was the House unnecessarily hustled with the Bill?

Mr. Morrison: It was desirable to get the Second Reading of the Bill, and I agree that there was complaint at the time that we had taken the Second Reading rather early. It will be remembered that although that was so, and I admitted it, I did say that there would be a reasonable pause between the Second Reading and Committee Stage which would wipe out the grievance about the early Second Reading. In accord with our usual friendly and obliging character we have met that request.

Sir Ian Fraser: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Bill to amend the Parliament Act will be introduced?

Mr. Morrison: It is being presented today; everything is in order.

Mrs. Leah Manning: In view of the urgent need to recruit women to the nursing profession, is it intended to take the Bill, which has gone through all its stages in another place, early in the next Session?

Mr. Morrison: I think that my hon. Friend may take it that that will be so.

Earl Winterton: In view of the favourable answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave to one of his supporters about an all-party Motion, will he give an equally favourable answer to a Motion down in the name of the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) and myself on a subject which is very important, and in which this House takes great interest?
[That consideration should be given to an alteration of the law regarding cruelty to children, with a view to the increase


of the maximum penalty as well as provision for instruction and assistance for parents or guardians of children where cruelty or indifference arises from ignorance or environment conditions.]
It cannot be discussed on the Adjournment, because it involves legislation. Will he give favourable consideration to that, because there was only a partial Debate the other day, excellent as was the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for North Hendon (Mrs. Ayrton Gould).

Mr. Morrison: I thought that the House covered the ground pretty well and did not even use up all the time available. I am afraid I cannot hold out any likelihood of legislation or a further Debate on this subject.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider giving facilities for the final stages of the Pet Animals Bill which secured a Committee Stage?

Mr. Morrison: I gather, Sir, that this is one Bill that did not survive.

Sir T. Moore: It did. It got through its Committee Stage fully and now we are only waiting the final stages of Report and Third Reading?

Mr. Morrison: The hon. and gallant Gentleman really should not come this—I am sorry, I nearly said "blarney." If the Bill did not get through, it did not get through—

Sir T. Moore: It did.

Mr. Morrison: If it did not get a Report and Third Reading it did not get through and I am afraid that there it is, poor little thing; it is stuck and dead.

Mrs. Ayrton Gould: May I ask my right hon. Friend to give further consideration to the request of the noble Lord on the subject of the neglected and ill-treated children. May I urge that it is a very important question, in view of the large number of children that are unable to be touched by existing legislation, and also by the fact that the home of the neglected child is recognised to be the breeding ground of juvenile delinquency, which is becoming increasingly the concern both of this House and of the country?

Mr. Morrison: I must confess I find the combination of my hon. Friend and

the noble Lord almost irresistible, but I honestly do not see how I can provide facilities for the further discussion which is suggested.

Mr. Granville: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will answer the second part of my question, which was if he could tell the House when it is intended to have the Adjournment Motion, which I understand is the day before the actual Debate on the Adjournment; and if the normal arrangements are to be made and Mr. Speaker empowered to recall the House in the case of an emergency?

Mr. Morrison: I told the House all about this in response to the question of the hon. Member. Unfortunately he was talking to some one next to him at the time and he did not hear. We shall take the Adjournment Motion tomorrow and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall give the appropriate assurances on the point he has raised.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: May I ask the Lord President whether it is intended that the House shall rise this Saturday for the Summer Recess?

Mr. Morrison: So far as I know, yes.

Sir Waldron Smithers: May I ask the Leader of the House whether, before we adjourn, he can give us the date of the next General Election?

UTILITY GOODS (PRICE REDUCTION)

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): My right hon. and learned Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, recently stressed in the House the crucial importance, in the present situation, of pursuing vigorously the Government's policy on Personal Incomes, Costs and Prices. One of the factors operating against stabilisation of personal incomes, and certainly a matter giving rise to great anxiety in the mind of the general public, is the continued high level of prices of essential consumer goods, including articles in the utility schemes. The Government believe that there is room for a reduction in costs, particularly in the distributive trades, which will lead to a reduction in prices.
We have, therefore, decided that immediate action should be taken which


would have the effect of reducing by, on the average, about 5 per cent.—that is, a shilling in the pound—the statutory maximum prices in the shops of utility clothing, utility footwear and utility household textiles. I shall endeavour, so far as possible, to spread the reduction between retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers; but in order that consumers may obtain the full benefit of lower prices as soon as possible, the brunt of the reduction will, at the outset, fall on the retailers' gross margins.
The changes will mean lower gross margins for these utility goods than have hitherto been allowed, and will probably necessitate a reduction in costs which may take the form of smaller staffs and a curtailment of services to the public.
The Orders giving effect to these changes will be made and published as soon as possible and will come into force early in September. I regret that, in the circumstances, I have been unable to consult the trade associations concerned as has been usual before substantial changes were made in controlled prices.
I know that these changes will involve a good deal of additional work for the traders affected by them. But the general burden which compliance with the price control regulations involves, will be lightened by the removal in the near future of price control from certain items of non-utility clothing and a wide range of other goods outside the utility field. I am satisfied that control can be removed from these goods with very little risk of increase in price; indeed, in many of these cases prices are already falling.

Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: Might I ask two questions? First, can the right hon. Gentleman say why it has been impossible to consult the trade associations? Secondly, that being so, will he give the House an assurance that opportunities will be given for representations by the trade on particular instances? If I understood his statement, a curtailment of services to the public is clearly contemplated and it is very desirable that there should be no curtailment unless the results are really worth while.

Mr. Wilson: I think the House would agree when a decision is taken of a kind like this, covering a general source of supply, that to consult all the very large

number of trade associations concerned would be literally impossible. I have no doubt that representations will be made immediately following my statement. Of course, if they are so made, I myself, or other representatives of my Department, will be glad to consider them. I am sure that the House will agree that we must aim at the average reduction of 1s. in the £ on clothing prices as an essential contribution to dealing with present economic difficulties. If there are special hardships involved in one or two cases, that will mean that probably something more will have to be done on others.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Am I right in assuming that all the classes covered by this new decision are exempt from Purchase Tax and, therefore, there will be no question of distributors having to bear losses in regard to Purchase Tax?

Mr. Wilson: Yes, Sir. I think that the right hon. Gentleman can assume that, because I have referred to the whole of the utility grades which, with one exception, I think are free from Purchase Tax. I should like to look into the special point about the one exception, namely, furs.

Mr. Albu: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that there will be no reduction in the volume of utility goods coming on the market?

Mr. Wilson: The proportion of utility goods is at present increasing, and I have every reason to suppose that it will continue to increase.

Mr. Jennings: Might I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, after taking that step, he will take a further step and reduce the burden of Government expenditure on industry generally?

Mr. Tolley: Might I ask my right hon. Friend when he assumes that it will be possible for him to consult the trade? It appears to me that his statement saying that he intends for the time being to place the full burden upon the retail trade, is rather hard. Is it not fair to suggest that the retailer, the wholesaler and the manufacturer should be brought into line and that each should share the burden?

Mr. Wilson: I made it plain that all will participate in this benefit—[An HON. MEMBER: "Benefit?"]—which we have decided to introduce, and as quickly as possible it will be applied to manufacturers


and retailers. I do not think that there will be an interval of more than a few weeks at the most between the introduction to retailers and the introduction to manufacturers.

Mr. Spearman: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how he proposes to prevent increased inflationary pressure as a result of the increased purchasing power which will be generated by these reductions?

Mr. Wilson: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have agreed that this was one of the best disinflationary steps that could be taken at present.

Mr. Cecil Poole: Will my right hon. Friend either tell the House now, or make available in the OFFICIAL REPORT, the wholesale and retail gross margins on the various goods that he has mentioned, so that we may be able to assess correctly whether five per cent. is the utmost cut that may be made in those margins, especially in relation to utility clothing? Secondly, might I ask a question which has already been hinted at? Will he keep very careful watch to see that there is not now a disappearance of utility goods from the shops, as has so often happened in the past?

Mr. Wilson: I think that we have dealt with the second question. In reply to the first, I will certainly consider making the information available as quickly as possible, but I certainly could not give an assurance that that information will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT before the House adjourns.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Will the Minister realise that when he makes a serious announcement of this kind without previous consultation with the trade he is making it more difficult for friendly relations to be maintained between the trade and the Board of Trade; and will he give an assurance that it is not his desire or that of his Department to depart from the practice which has hitherto been observed of consultation with the trade whenever possible?

Mr. Wilson: Yes, Sir. I am very alive to that point, but the hon. Gentleman will realise that there is another section of the community involved—the consumers—and it has not been possible to have full consultation with them either.

Mr. Collins: Has my right hon. Friend anything in mind at all other than the possible curtailment and reduction of staffs?

Mr. Wilson: I think it is generally agreed by the House that the staffs in the distributing trades have grown rather more than the nation can afford in the last year or two. If the effect of this Measure is some slight reduction of staff in distribution, I think it will be useful.

Mr. William Shepherd: While admitting that consultations with all the trade associations affected was impossible, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman why he did not consult the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, who would have assisted him in this matter?

Mr. Wilson: I have no doubt that they could have assisted, but it would be equally possible to make out a case for at least a dozen other organisations which might have been consulted, the more so as I have said that this will apply not only to retailers, but to wholesalers and manufacturers.

BILL PRESENTED

PARLIAMENT BILL

"to amend the Parliament Act, 1911," presented by the Prime Minister; supported by Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr. Ede and the Attorney-General; read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 187.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Coal Industry Bill and the Married Women (Maintenance) Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL

Read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

Orders of the Day — ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE PRESS (REPORT)

4.3 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I beg to move,
That this House, having taken into consideration the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press (Cmd. 7700) would welcome all possible action on the part of the Press to give effect to the Commission's conclusions and recommendations.
In submitting to the House the Motion with regard to the Royal Commission on the Press which stands in the names of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and myself, I am sure that all sides of the House will join with me in expressing our very grateful thanks to the Royal Commission, and also its staff, for their labours, for the very great effort they have made and for the production of an exceedingly important report on the British Press. Whether we agree with the Report or not in particular respects, I think everybody will agree that it is a most valuable survey of the British Press and a most valuable study of the problems of journalism in our country. I think the House would expect me on its behalf to express our thanks and appreciation to the Chairman and members for their labours and to the staff of the Royal Commission for the excellent services which they have rendered.
We shall be talking a good deal today about the Press, and I hope the House will permit me to read something which has been drawn to our attention by the Newspaper Society, a body highly representative of the provincial newspaper Press, Among the matters which they have submitted to the Government, they have said that the point which the Society emphasised in its evidence to the Royal Commission and which it wishes again to bring strongly before the Government is this:

There is no such homogeneous collection of newspapers as can be classed under one heading as the Press. Strictures on the Press as a whole are very unfair to the vast majority of newspapers.
I think there is a great deal of truth in that observation. We are liable to be damaging in references to the Press when we may mean particular organs of the Press, and, on the other hand, the Press is sometimes inclined to think that the whole of the newspaper world is attacked when in fact a criticism is only being made of one newspaper or a limited number of newspapers. Therefore, if any of us should slip into references to the Press when we mean particular organs of the Press or particular types of newspapers, I hope we may be forgiven, because I think it is a perfectly fair point which the Newspaper Society has raised.
It is evident from the comments of some organs of the Press that in some quarters there has been forgetfulness of the circumstances in which the Royal Commission on the Press was set up. For example, one of the themes which ran through some of the comments of the Press was that the Commission rejected the idea of State control of the Press or State newspapers, and it is true that the Commission did reject any such idea, but the implication which has been drawn from it is quite false. That implication in a number of organs of the Press has been that the Government, or members of the Labour Party or the National Union of Journalists, had suggested State interference with the Press or State ownership. [Laughter.]
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken) is in one of his giggling moods, and, if he wants to prove that we did urge State ownership or State control of the Press, possibly he will have another opportunity, but, in the meantime, he should suppress his mirth, because he may be called upon to explain what that mirth means, in which case he would be un lucky. It is the case that the Royal Commission itself stated—and it does not seem to have made much impression either upon the right hon. Gentleman or upon some of the newspapers—in its Report, in paragraph 573, that it was not suggested by a single witness that newspapers should be owned by the State.
Another idea which certain newspapers have sought to foster is that the Commission has vindicated the Press against the criticisms which were made before it was set up. These words "vindicated" and "vindication" were the most favoured words in the headlines on that famous Thursday morning. The "Evening Standard," one of our London evening newspapers, certainly went to it in the way of headlines which were calculated to mislead their readers, unless the "Evening Standard" had not read the Report, in which case it was not calculated but due to lack of knowledge. The headlines said:
Socialist attack thrown back.
The newspapers are vindicated.
Royal Commission clears the honour of the Press.
The public need have no misgivings.
No corruption, no monopolies, no State interference.
Plan for a voluntary Press Council.
The attack that failed.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I appreciate those cheers; they are eloquent of the position of some hon. Members.
The "Daily Graphic" had a headline:
Royal Commission rejects State control.
British Press is vindicated.

Mr. Pickthorn: What about the "Daily Herald" headline?

Mr. Morrison: I have not got it by me; I should imagine that it was a descriptive and factual analysis.
There were one or two sad results of the way in which many of the newspapers treated the Report of the Royal Commission. One was that it brought upon the Press a reproof from a member of the Royal Commission, to which I shall refer later on, but the most notable and tragically sad result of parts of the Press not correctly describing the Report of the Royal Commission was that the Opposition got completely misled on that Thursday.
The result was that, as the Opposition had not read the Report, but had read the "Evening Standard" headlines and others, the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) was in a great mood of victory. He was almost aggressive in demanding that there should be an early Debate on the Report, and it

was perfectly clear from the sparkle in his eye that he was looking forward, within a few days, to rolling the Government and many of my hon. Friends who had criticised the Press, in the mud, and, possibly, he was looking forward to rolling me in the mud also.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: The right hon. Gentleman is up to his neck in it.

Mr. Morrison: It will be all right on the day. Of course, the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington was completely misled, as were his hon. Friends. They had been reading some of the newspapers which had misled them as to the nature of the Report.
I make no accusation, but I am bound to say that on the following Thursday there seemed to be no eagerness for this Debate on the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press. On the next following Thursday there were no signs of it either, and that is when I got myself into trouble by indicating that I sympathised with my hon. Friend the Member for South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies) in fearing that the Opposition was rather retiring from the field. The net consequence is, I regret to say, that we shall be sitting on Saturday this week, which is all right by me; I shall be there.
It was an example of what, after all, is His Majesty's Opposition—of what was once a great political party—being completely misled by certain popular organs of the Press as to what the Report of the Royal Commission said. I would urge the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington in future to say to himself, "If it is reported in a Tory newspaper, it may not be so," and then he will not get so lively in walking into battle and he will not find it so embarrassing in trying to get out of the battle into which he has walked. The consequence was that some comments have been made about this matter. The "Economist," which is often quoted by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, said on 2nd July, 1949:
This week's headlines saying that the British Press is vindicated, therefore fall below the standard of accuracy that the Commission enjoins.
I almost thought we ought to have another Royal Commission to look into


the way that the Report of the first Royal Commission had been received by some of the newspapers of the country.

Mr. Henry Strauss: The "Tribune"?

Mr. Morrison: Let us consider the circumstances which led to the establishment of the Royal Commission—what, in fact, led to the Commission. Why was it set up? At Easter, 1946, the annual delegate meeting of the National Union of Journalists passed a resolution strongly urging the appointment of a Royal Commission on the Press of Great Britain. Subsequently, I received a deputation from the National Union of Journalists which asked for a thorough investigation into the structure, standards, and organisation of the British newspaper industry by a Royal Commission which would report on ways and means of safeguarding and enlarging the freedom of the Press. In replying to the deputation from the N.U.J., I said that
if such an inquiry should be instituted it would have as its object furthering and making wider and more genuine the freedom of the British Press.
On 29th October, 1946, the House of Commons debated a Private Member's Motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West St. Pancras which asked for the appointment of a Royal Commission and stated that one of the purposes of appointing the Royal Commission—indeed, the main purpose—was to further and ensure the freedom of the Press.

Mr. Harold Roberts: Will the Leader of the House tell us the date on which he received the deputation?

Mr. Morrison: I am not sure. I have not got the date, but it can be taken that it would not have been very long after Easter, 1946—at any rate during that year.

Mr. Roberts: May I refresh the right hon. Gentleman's memory and suggest that it was not until July?

Mr. Morrison: Well, what does it matter? It may be so; I would not argue about it, and I cannot see the importance of the point anyway.
At the end of the Debate on my hon. Friend's Motion, which I wound up on behalf of His Majesty's Government, I said that in the Government's view a case had been made out for an inquiry. I said:
We believe that an inquiry ought to be held, that evidence should be heard, and that a Royal Commission should make such report and recommendations as they think wise. As one who has dabbled in journalism, I believe that at the end of it all journalism will not be hurt. The freedom of the Press will not be damaged. That is the last thing the Government want to do. We have a healthy mind on that subject. But we believe that an inquiry and investigation will render a service to British journalism, and help it on its onward march to greater and greater heights of public service.
This Report having been received, my firm conviction is that it will assist the British Press in the directions which I indicated on that ocasion. I concluded by saying:
The only real question for the House is this. Is newspaperland—the world of the Press agencies and periodicals—an institution of such public importance that from time to time it should be subjected to an impartial inquiry? On the other hand, is it of such an exceptional character that it should be exempt from any investigation or inquiry? Is journalism a profession for which there must be perfect freedom from any investigation? We have committees on dentists and dentistry, and we have investigations into the position of doctors."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428, c. 558–60.]
and so on. And, of course, we have from time to time an inquiry into the British Broadcasting Corporation, and there are no greater supporters of an inquiry into the British Broadcasting Corporation than the newspapers of the country and if I may say so with respect, I think they are right.
There was not a word about State control or interference. The theme throughout was the importance of a free Press, even to the extent of expressly instructing the Royal Commission that one of the objects of the inquiry was "furthering the free expression of opinion through the Press." It is being assumed that Labour men and women do nothing but abuse the newspaper Press. I have a great admiration for the Press as a whole. I have severe criticisms about parts of the Press. I am fond of the Press and of newspaper men, and I have done all I can, as a Member of the Government, to assist the Press in the discharge of their duties. [Laughter.] It is


true, and nobody knows it better than the right hon. Member for Bournemouth. Indeed, I am a better help to the Press than he was as Minister of Information.
Anybody would think that no Conservative Leader had ever said a word against the newspapers. It is assumed that only the Socialists ever criticise some of the newspapers. One of the most brilliant criticisms of the Press was made by the former Conservative Leader, the late Lord Baldwin, when he was Mr. Baldwin and was Prime Minister. Speaking on 17th March, 1931, as reported in "The Times" of 18th March, 1931, at Queens Hall, Langham Place, at a very large meeting where they sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," he said, among other things, the following, which I have never gone quite as far as saying:
The papers conducted by Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook are not newspapers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. (Cheers.) They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes of two men. (Loud cheers.)
Later on he finished up with his famous phrase. He commented on certain personal observations that some of the newspapers had made against him, and he finished up by saying:
What the proprietorship of these newspapers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.
I am bound to say that reading those words in cold blood, I feel almost ashamed. I have never said anything as harsh as that against the newspapers, and I hope I never shall; I do not think I shall because, as I have said, I have an instinctive affection for journalists and for newspapers.
So much for past history. Let us ask ourselves whether the appointment of the Royal Commission and the nature of its Report has been justified by the results. First, has it, as is claimed in many quarters, vindicated the Press generally? Here I should like to give the House a few extracts from the Report which really knock over these claims about vindication which were made in so many organs of the Press. One extract is:
Some of the spokesmen of the Press who gave evidence appeared to us unduly complacent and deficient in the practice of self-criticism.
I have heard these words before. They are often used by gentlemen of the Press

against Ministers of the Crown. It is curious that these words should be spoken of the newspapers themselves, or some of them. The Report continues:
We have given reasons why in our opinion the newspapers, with few exceptions, fail to supply the electorate with adequate materials for sound political judgment.
In paragraph 559 we find this:
In the popular papers, consideration of news value acts as a distorting medium even apart from any political considerations: it attaches, as we have shown, supreme importance to the new, the exceptional, and the 'human,' and it emphasises these elements in the news to the detriment or even the exclusion of the normal and the continuing. Consequently the picture is always out of focus. The combination day after day of distortion due to these factors with the distortion arising from political partisanship has a cumulative effect upon the reader. It results, where it is carried farthest, not only in a debasement of standards of taste, but also in a further weakening of the foundations of intelligent judgment in public affairs. Political partisanship alone, as we have indicated, deprives the citizen of the evidence on which conclusions should be based: political partisanship in conjunction with a high degree of distortion for news value may lead him to forget that conclusions are, or should be, grounded on evidence.
I have not quoted these conclusions with any vindictive feeling but in order that the balance of the picture shall be restored. I suggest that conclusions of that sort after a survey by this Commission do justify the appointment of the Commission. The Government certainly did not pack this Royal Commission with critics of the Press. I think everybody will agree with me that, if anything, we leaned over backwards to get an impartial Commission and, therefore, no charge of that sort can be made. This was a Commission of moderate-minded people, on the whole, I should have thought, who wished to be fair and objective in their consideration of the problem. Therefore, it cannot be said that the Government were in any way improper in the spirit in which they approached the selection of the members for the Royal Commission.
As I have said, the Report was published and there was a good deal of comment about it and a good deal of summarising in the newspapers. I am very glad that some of the newspapers did protest against the lack of objectivity and impartiality with which some other newspapers published summaries of the Royal Commission's Report and the


headlines with which they were accompanied. The "Observer," which itself has been castigated by the Royal Commission on a particular point, said:
That newspapers are capable of inaccurate reporting was nicely demonstrated last Thursday, when almost every popular newspaper summarised the findings of the Royal Commission on the Press in a manner favourable to themselves. No one who relied on these papers for his information could have guessed that much of the Commission's Report was unfavourable to our industry or profession. The Commission proves, with example after example, that personal and political bias often dictate the way in which an event is reported.
The "Manchester Guardian" said:
A large part of the Commission's report is extremely critical of the Press.
These things were not manifested in headlines of the two newspapers to which reference has been made. I again express my sorrow and sympathy with the Opposition that they were so badly misled by their own friends in the Press on this matter.
But this was not all. It was not that only those two great newspapers, the "Observer" and the "Manchester Guardian" commented in that way. Later on a member of the Royal Commission itself, none other than Sir George Waters, who had signed a minority note at the end of the Commission's Report dissenting from the idea that laymen should be put on the proposed Press Council, but agreeing to the idea, came out with a few observations in a forthright manner which he addressed to the Institute of Journalists on 12th July. He said:
I have been seriously disturbed by the selective treatment which the Commission's Report has received from the editorials of newspapers. I can assure you that the Commission never intended this to be a whitewashing report; nor is it. It has been hailed as a complete vindication of the Press, or, in any case, as a vindication. It is nothing of the kind. Those who say so cannot have read the Report or cannot have understood it. It is, in fact, severely critical of the performance of the Press; it is a vindication of the organisation, not the performance of the Press. I still feel that there is more in the Report than is good for the health of our profession or any profession. Some of my colleagues thought the Press very inefficient in the medium of self-criticism. … Yet the case against the general council, as stated in one newspaper after another, rests on the assertion that the Commission found little or nothing wrong with the Press. This unwillingness to face the facts, this wanton neglect of the plain

conclusions of the Report, shows the Press, I am sorry to say, in a very poor light.
That is Sir George Waters. Some papers are to be congratulated and, on the whole, those which have congratulated themselves more often than not are the ones which the Commission criticise most sharply.
I come to the Government view of the Report and the attitude which we think is right in respect of it and which we would commend to the favourable consideration of the House. The Government are prepared to accept the Report of the Royal Commission, in general. We regard it as a valuable document, and I think that the National Union of Journalists, representing a large part of a great profession, are to be congratulated on having taken the initiative in securing the appointment of the Royal Commission and that the House also is to be congratulated on the decision which it reached. On the whole, we think that the Report of the Royal Commission is balanced and sound. It is a pity that some of the newspapers have emphasised the compliments which the Commission paid to the Press and made too little of the criticisms. They will be chiefly to blame if there should be a tendency in this Debate to redress the balance.
I am anxious to give justice where justice is due and, personally, I am only too glad to acknowledge the broad justice of the Commission's tributes to the British Press. It is, perhaps, rather rhetorical to say that it is generally agreed that the British Press is inferior to none in the world, but I agree that, as a whole, it is equal to any of which I have personal knowledge. We can be proud of the absence of bribery and of what the Commission describe as "its other negative virtues." We can be proud of the amazing technical achievement of the British Press, the high level of efficiency in production and distribution which has been attained and the cheapness and reliability—or rather, readability—of the popular newspapers, in particular.
We are fortunate in our so-called quality newspapers and periodicals of which, at least, it can be said, in the Commission's words—page 150:
A mass of material upon which considered judgment on crucial problems, national and international, can be built up will be found in their pages.


At the same time, the general observations of the Commission are much more generous than perhaps is justified by the sharpness of its particular criticisms of certain sections of the Press on some major points—political bias in presenting news, lapses of taste, sensationalism, inexcusable inaccuracies and errors of emphasis. But it is not my intention to bring out all the criticisms of the Report. The Press itself has, however, made it necessary to show—or rather some sections of the Press have made it necessary to show—that the Commission did not find that newspapers and their owners were angels and, indeed, that the Commission recommended steps to help them a little nearer to the angels.
What, too, of the finding that the weaknesses of the Press are, in part at least the weaknesses of the public? Does not past experience show that, under pressure of competition, the newspapers tend to lower their standards? And is there not a risk, when newsprint becomes more plentiful and much larger newspapers return into circulation, that these dangers and tendencies may be re-created in those circumstances, which may yet come, and that history may repeat itself? I hope that is not to be the case.
These problems of the Press, which the Commission handles very sympathetically—and to a considerable extent it explains how and why these difficulties occur—have led the Royal Commission to propose the establishment of a General Council of the Press. In some organs of opinion and in some newspapers—in fact, many of them—this proposal has been condemned, I think, out of hand, with perhaps insufficient thought and reflection.
The whole theme running through the evidence before the Royal Commission on the part of a good deal of the Press was that, "The public can buy our newspapers or do not need to buy them. We can take care of ourselves. There is no need for anybody to watch and look at the newspapers and to see whether criticisms ought to be made." That is what the Royal Commission refers to as an undue degree of complacency. Repeatedly, members of the Royal Commission put the point: "You newspaper men criticise public men, criticise various citizens, criticise various evils, and the question is, Who is to criticise the Press?" The newspaper men tended to answer, "We

will take care of that; there is no need for any particular body to look after criticisms of the Press." There is an assumption that the Press is the one public institution which must be left by itself to take its own line, to develop its own standards, without any responsible criticism or without any sense that somebody is about who is capable of engaging in what we hope would be fair-minded criticism and adjudication. That is their assumption—that the business of the newspapers is the business of the newspapers and of nobody else.
As against that, I will quote the right hon. Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken). I think I have his words of wisdom here. He was speaking in the House on 16th July, 1946, and, curiously enough, we were debating the B.B.C. I am afraid both he and I began talking about newspapers because we both find it a very fascinating subject. I forget what were the stimulating circumstances. However, he said:
I aver that the right hon. Gentleman"—
by which he meant me—
quite unnecessarily brought up this topic of the Press. He said the Government accepted the desire of his hon. Friends that there should be an inquiry into the state of the Press. I believe"—
which means that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth believes—
that the state of the Press is thoroughly well known. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I believe also that the right hon. Gentleman has no respect whatsoever for the freedom of the Press"—
that is a slander—
or for the freedom of any one who ventures to criticise the Government or his august self.
That is a worse slander. Then he said, and I agree with him in this—except for the last words—very much:
Freedom of the Press, let me remind the Lord President, is a right of the public and not a right of the Press, and the public will have something to say about the Lord President's threats to the Press today.
Whereupon it is recorded that the Chairman—Major Milner—said:
This Debate is concerned not with the Press but with broadcasting."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1946: Vol. 425, c. 1098.]
I could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman more. This is a matter which concerns the public and not only the newspapers. For myself, I regard the Press as a great institution which, in my


judgment, plays, unofficially but nevertheless effectively, an essential part in the workings of the British Constitution. We have King and Lords and Commons; and we have our Debates; and the House has the freedom to attack and criticise the Government of the day; and I believe the newspapers also make their contribution to the working of the British Constitution. The knowedge that any day they may drop on the Government, fairly or unfairly, and knock them about, is a good thing for Ministers to know; and there are times when newspaper criticisms and suggestions have been most valuable as correctives of Government policy and administration. Personally, I have learned a good many things from paragraphs in the Press, which drew my attention to things which otherwise would not have come to my notice.
This proposal for a General Council is a proposal that there should be a body which would watch the Press, which would comment upon standards in the Press, which would encourage good standards of journalism and of reporting and of presentation; a body to which complaints could be sent; and a body which also could represent the rights of the Press to the Government and international organisations, and so on. In our judgment the recommendation of the Royal Commission is right. It is proposed that as to four-fifths of the membership, roughly, it should be composed of newspaper men of one sort and another, but as to about 20 per cent., including the chairman, it should be composed of outside people—fair minded, good citizens. It is proposed that they should be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord President of the Court of Session.
The Commission is unanimous about the establishment of the General Council. It is not quite unanimous about the inclusion of laymen from outside. We think it is right that laymen should be included, and that that balance of suggested appointments is roughly correct. The Government cannot, of course, say whether the Lord Chief Justice would be willing to undertake the responsibility or the Lord President of the Court of Session. That would be for them to decide, if and when the Press puts the matter to them. No doubt,

it may in part depend upon the final state of the scheme.
As far as the Government are concerned, we endorse the majority recommendation in this respect, including the proposal for a lay chairman and about 20 per cent. of laymen. We think it is important that the Council should be a really effective body. We believe it can be of assistance to the Press, and not a nuisance to newspapermen, and would in no way interfere with their freedom. In the main it would be appointed by the Press itself, and the proposal is that the Press should voluntarily take this action. The Government hope that the Press will do this, as recommended by the Royal Commission.
We think that is the best thing that could happen, and that it is far better that the Press should do this piece of work itself in the manner which is suggested. If it should turn out—though I hope it will not be the case—that the Press should not be willing to take steps for the appointment of such a General Council the Government and Parliament would have to consider the situation which would thereby be created. It is for the House today to express its view whether it would wish the Press to take this action. I feel reasonably confident that if the House of Commons so expressed itself, it is likely that the Press will set up the General Council in the form recommended by the Royal Commission or, at any rate, roughly in that form.
There were some other specific proposals. We endorse the recommendation—which, I think, was, indeed, generally welcomed in newspaper land itself—that the present agreement to refrain from non-journalistic means of competition should be prolonged indefinitely; that is to say, the cessation of the use of what were called "adventitious aids to circulation," when free gifts were given, and so on. I think that the whole of newspaper land is against it. I do not think there is any danger of its resumption, but we endorse the view of the Royal Commission.
We endorse the hope of the Royal Commission that the large newspaper chains will grow no larger. That view is expressed in paragraph 672. On the relatively minor points regarding legislation, dealt with in paragraph 684, the


Government would not be prepared to commit themselves finally, and the proposals will have to be further considered in detail; but in general they would be sympathetically disposed to legislation at a convenient opportunity.
There were some references in the Report of the Royal Commission to the Government information services, as to which the Commission sought evidence. It was given from official channels, and the services were criticised by various witnesses outside the Government information services. The Commission devotes a section to this matter. It reached the conclusion that the evidence does not suggest
… that up to now any harmful influence is being exerted on the Press through the medium of the Government information services; but if newspapers get out of the habit of finding their own news and into the habit of taking all or most of it unquestioningly from a Government department they are obviously in some danger of falling into totalitarian paths. Future developments therefore need to be carefully watched.
The Royal Commission also suggested in paragraph 654 that the proper relationship between the Press and Government information officers was one of the matters the General Council might take up on behalf of the Press. The Government accept the Commission's general comments on this matter, and it is noteworthy that the Commission seemed to have been afraid of totalitarian tendencies as a result of lack of energy or want of enterprise on the part of the newspapers and not through any fault of the information services.
Personally, I do not think there is much danger of any such totalitarian tendency, either through the one fault or the other. The British have too much individualism in them to be easy victims of totalitarian tendencies, and any tendency to totalitarianism this Government would be the first to resist. Indeed, one of the dangers of capitalism, which was strongly supported by the Conservative Party through the development of monopolies and cartels, was a tendency to totalitarianism, which we have checked by transferring some of them from private monopoly into public ownership. Therefore, we are the strongest opponents of totalitarianism—though the Conservatives are not bad, even if they are a little bit under suspicion in that respect. There is nothing—and the Report

does not suggest otherwise—in the existence of the information services which can prevent the Press from developing alternative sources of information and news.
The Royal Commission naturally emphasises the desirability of additional supplies of newsprint as soon as the economic position allows, and particularly expresses the hope that consideration will be given, as supplies increase, to the possibility of lifting the present restrictions on use of newsprint for new papers. The Government are anxious to do everything practicable in both respects when the circumstances permit. As and when newsprint becomes freely available again, the testing time for the British Press will really come.
We agree with the Royal Commission that, on the whole, the British Press is inferior to none in the world, and some sections of it can be proud of the standards they maintain. Indeed, the most serious criticisms apply only to a limited part of the Press, though a very important part in terms of circulation. The Royal Commission has, we submit, however, shown that standards in some important respects are low, even deplorably low> and that some dangerous tendencies exist, which the Report of the Royal Commission may serve to arrest. We think that the General Council, if it realises the hopes of the Commission, should be able to raise the standards both of the newspaper industry and of the journalistic profession. We feel that the case for an inquiry of this kind from time to time has been vindicated. It has been accepted in principle for the B.B.C., which, quite rightly, is subjected to independent inquiry from time to time.

Mr. Bracken: It is a monopoly.

Mr. Morrison: I of course understand that it is a monopoly. Nevertheless, the Press is of very great importance to the public, as the right hon. Gentleman has himself said. There is a great deal to be said for a periodical investigation in good will, though if the General Council of the Press is established and becomes a success it may not be necessary to have a periodical Royal Commission. I agree that the B.B.C. is a monopoly. But it is a public monopoly; there is that to be said about it and for it. Nevertheless, I fully agree that it is right that


periodically there should be an independent investigation into the affairs of the B.B.C.
After all, the Press is unique in being a great institution, vital to our democracy, which has virtual freedom from public criticism, certainly of the newspapers which are read by most of the people. Their treatment of the Report shows their capacity to suppress or play down criticisms of themselves. Well, we think that the Royal Commission was a venture which it was wise for the House of Commons to get going and to encourage the Government to appoint. We think its Report is a report of the greatest value. I think it is a classic in the way of a survey and investigation into the British newspaper Press. I think it is exceedingly useful, and I would urge sincerely, with respect, and I hope in all friendliness, upon all those who carry responsibility in newspaper land that they should give the Report sympathetic consideration.
I earnestly hope that, in the interests of journalism itself those concerned in the world of newspapers will voluntarily proceed to act in accordance with the spirit of the Report of the Royal Commission, for I agree entirely that the best thing that could happen is for newspaper land itself to take the matter in hand rather than that Parliament or Government should have to take any steps in the matter at all. I commend this Motion to the consideration of the House.

4.53 p.m.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: I should like to begin by associating myself and my hon. and right hon. Friends with the tributes that the Lord President of the Council has paid to the work of this Commission. I agree with him. I think that the Report is not only a painstaking but also a very readable document. The Lord President described it as "a classic survey." The differences in the party opposite are made obvious when we find that in "Tribune" his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) described it as "a tepid and unimaginative document."
The Lord President twitted the Opposition with what he alleged was our reluctance to have this Debate. Let me reassure him that certainly on my part there was no reluctance whatsoever. I

have looked forward to it with anticipation of enjoyment, particularly, of course, to the part that I am going to play. I may say that the right hon. Gentleman's speech has in no way decreased that anticipation. It is quite true that we did consider whether it would not be the right thing to postpone our enjoyment because of what we understood were the wishes of the Government and what would have been to the convenience of the House. However, we understood from the statements of the Lord President that, after all, the Government did not want us to do that, and we therefore gladly welcome this occasion.
I naturally, in order to inform myself on this matter, turned to the OFFICIAL REPORT of our last Debate on this subject, and the first thing that struck me was that it was rather like a house party of the Oxford Group, because every Member started by confessing his particular connection with the Press. Well, it will not take me long to confess my connection. I have been asked at intervals—long intervals—to write articles for various journals. But let no one suspect that that means any tie-up with any section of the Press, because investigation shows that I have never been asked twice by the same paper. Personally, I regard that as a reflection on the judgment and culture of the editorial staffs of the various newspapers, but I did not think it sufficiently serious to refer it to the Royal Commission.
I noticed, as I expected I should, a very distinct change in the tone of the right hon. Gentleman. He was very much mellower, very much more friendly to those sections of the Press that he had been previously attacking, and I thought that somehow or another the hatchet had been buried, because not so very long ago, one Sunday morning when I was getting out of a train, I bought the "Sunday Times," which has at the head of it "A Kemsley Newspaper," and there facing me on the front page was a large photograph which, even without my reading spectacles, I could be certain was one of two things: it was either the Lord President imitating Napoleon or it was Napoleon imitating the Lord President. Well, I assumed that the first was right; and it was, because when I was able to read the letterpress underneath, I found


that, although part of it was unintelligible, all of it was laudatory. I hope that that is an example which is going to be followed elsewhere. I hope that before long I shall see my own photograph on the front page of the "Daily Herald," with under it perhaps a few laudatory remarks from the honeyed pen of the hon. Member for Devonport.
The right hon. Gentleman devoted a great deal of his time to complaining of the reception by part of the Press of the Royal Commission's Report. He complained that they had spoken of it as a vindication; that they had referred to it as an attack that had failed. I think that in order to judge the correctness of the right hon. Gentleman's criticism, to judge whether, in fact, the Press were justified in using terms such as that, we must give some consideration to the circumstances under which this Royal Commission was set up. We on this side do not believe that it was, in fact, a nice objective approach—such as the right hon. Gentleman tells us takes place periodically in the case of the B.B.C.—as a result of a general disquiet about matters in the Press and a general desire on the part of everybody to have these matters, without any party bias, improved if it were possible. We do not believe that at all. We think that this was an almost naked, certainly ill-conceived, party political attack, not upon the Press as a whole but upon that section of the Press which opposes hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was an attempt to damage papers whose criticism was resented and whose influence might be feared.
The right hon. Gentleman gave a short résumé of the events which led to the setting up of the Royal Commission, and they are important. I should like slightly to fill up some of the gaps left by the right hon. Gentleman. He told us first of all about the resolution passed by the National Union of Journalists, and the first important feature he forgot to tell us about was that it was followed immediately by a refusal on the part of the Prime Minister to take any action upon it—so like the Prime Minister; he does have these honest aberrations which must be so trying for the Party bosses around him.

Mr. Nally: There is no danger of the right hon. Gentleman having any honest aberrations.

Mr. Stanley: That is worthy of every contribution the hon. Member makes in these discussions. Somehow or other the right hon. Gentleman, if he was to set up this Press Commission, had to show some circumstances which had changed so much as to make the refusal of the Prime Minister at one stage turn into acceptance at a later stage. It could not come too quickly; that might have looked as if the Government did not know their own mind—but that was three years ago.
We had the rest of the process described to us in some detail by the right hon. Gentleman when he spoke in our last Debate. There was first of all the visit by a deputation from the National Union of Journalists, men he described, I am sure rightly, as earnest, anxious and sincere men. They came to see the Lord President of the Council to put before him the case for having a Royal Commission, and the Lord President of the Council—these are his own words—said:
The deputation was received on behalf of the Government, and we came to the conclusion at that stage, not that they had made out their case, but that they had made out such a strong prima facie case that the Government came to the conclusion that the request for a Royal Commission was, at any rate, worthy of consideration. It was because of that that I was authorised by my colleagues to announce during the Debate on Broadcasting that the Government thought that the request was worthy of consideration, although we had not then come to any conclusion about it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428, c. 551.]
It sounded a detailed, orderly statement as to the progress of the education of the Lord President of the Council; detailed and orderly, but was it accurate? The Lord President said he received the deputation and that because of that he made his statement during the broadcasting Debate. My information is exactly to the contrary. My information is that the broadcasting Debate took place on 16th June and, according to the columns of "The Times," it was not until 22nd June that the right hon. Gentleman received this deputation.

Mr. Morrison: When did I say this? As the right hon. Gentleman has got on to a point of some importance, will he say when I made this statement about dates and the sequence of events?

Mr. Stanley: It comes from HANSARD—it was because of the deputation that


the right hon. Gentleman made his statement in the broadcasting Debate. The HANSARD is of Tuesday, 29th October, 1946.

Mr. Morrison: I cannot carry all these dates in my mind. I have not got them with me, and there is no reason why I should. But there were some other stages in these discussions. One was, if I recall rightly, that the National Union of Journalists sent a reasoned memorandum. But, in any case, I see no importance in the point.

Mr. Stanley: The right hon. Gentleman sees no importance in it, but I wonder if he would have said the same if a journalist had done it. Is there really no importance in the Lord President of the Council coming down to this House and telling us that he was persuaded to make a certain statement because of a deputation he had received before, if afterwards we find that he made his statement first and received the deputation afterwards? I call that a matter of very considerable importance.

Mr. Morrison: I will look it up.

Mr. Stanley: Surely the right hon. Gentleman has looked it up already because this point was raised during the Debate two years ago. He was challenged then whether he had not given an inaccurate statement to the House, but he said then, as he said today, that he could not charge his memory with dates.

Mr. Morrison: Terrible drama.

Mr. Stanley: It would have been if a journalist had been concerned.

Mr. Morrison: No, they forget it the next day.

Mr. Stanley: Well, we went through the formula set for us of having what was to be a perfectly free Debate. It was to be an occasion when no Whips were to be put on and no Government decision was to be taken. It was only after listening to this Debate that the Lord President of the Council was to make up his mind. It was a beautiful picture seeing the Lord President of the Council sitting there watching and weighing up, now being swayed one way by an hon. Member opposite and now being swayed the other way by a speech from this side. It

was beautifully summed up by the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon-Walker), who said of the Lord President:
As everyone knows, he is sitting here impartially, listening to this Debate to make up his mind according to the way it goes."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October; Vol. 428, c. 485.]
No wonder such a simple faith proved an immediate passport to the Government Front Bench, which the hon. Member for Smethwick now adorns as Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs.
Anyhow, somewhere about half way through the Debate the right hon. Gentleman did make up his mind. He announced that he was in favour of the setting up of the Royal Commission and, as I understand from the "Sunday Times," that those whom he affectionately calls "the boys" would be safe in following him. On looking through that Debate, I found one comment which I think was the most prophetic of all. A Member said that it seemed to him that this inquiry was unnecessary, might be injurious, and he thought it would be very likely futile. That was the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. [HON. MEMBERS: "He is on the Front Bench too."] No doubt from that they thought he was a good prophet, but it is the last time he made any accurate prophecy.
Can anyone really be in any doubt that this was a party political manoeuvre, and that the whole of this Debate was arranged, and this Royal Commission was set up, in the hope that from it would emerge something damaging to the right-wing Press? If we were in any doubt about it at the time, surely, in the light of subsequent events, now we can be in no doubt about it at all. The whole emphasis during that Debate was upon the National Union of Journalists. It was they who desired this inquiry; it was they who were going to give evidence on which it was to be based; it was they who were anxious to defend the general standards of the Press as a whole. I cannot refrain from reading what I regard as an almost unparalleled stricture made by any Commission—the stricture of this Royal Commission on the evidence given by the National Union of Journalists:
The Memorandum submitted to us by the Union was not a survey of the Press as a whole, but rather an attack on the right wing portion of it. In the light of what follows


in this chapter, the fact that the "Daily Worker" and the "Daily Mirror" were the only national daily papers not characterised by name, while the "Daily Herald" was scarcely mentioned, is some indication of the selective nature of the document. The Memorandum gave us no coherent and comprehensive picture and no means of reaching general conclusions about the extent and character of the abuses which had been said to exist.
These are the people on whom we were going to rely, whose views made this Royal Commission essential. That was the evidence which, when their chance came, they chose to give the Commission. Whatever stricture the right hon. Gentleman makes upon the Press for the reception of the Royal Commission's Report and for the claim that they have been vindicated, if we take into account the circumstances and the results of the partisan attack which was made upon them, then they were to that extent vindicated and justified in the pleasure with which they received the Report.
I want to deal in more detail with the charges against them and the answer which the Royal Commission gave, but I will, if I may, now refer to the speech made in our last Debate on the Press by the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies). I thought at the time, and reading HANSARD again I still think so, that it was the best speech made from the benches opposite on this question. It was not only extremely witty, but it tried to put in concrete form the catalogue of the complaints which he was making against the Press and what he wanted the Royal Commission to investigate. But before I turn to those detailed matters, may I just refer to one general statement made by a Member of the House who did not speak in that Debate and who did not think it necessary to give evidence? He did, however, make a pronouncement on the Press. It was the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, who described it as the most prostituted Press in the world.

Mr. H. Morrison: Very near to Mr. Baldwin.

Mr. Stanley: A slightly prim alternative for the ruder and rougher words used by Mr. Baldwin. The Minister of Health's description went out all over the world, to places where the right hon. Gentleman is not as well know as he is here, and there may have been many people who did not recognise it as one of his usual pieces of political buffoonery.

The Press cannot be blamed when things like that are said about them and the Commission report, and it is generally agreed, that the Press is inferior to none in the world, for regarding their finding as a vindication.
I shall try to summarise the points made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West St. Pancras. The four main points he wanted the inquiry to go into were: First, details of ownership and control; second, the monopolistic character which was being effected by the increase in chain newspapers; third, the influence of advertising on the presentation of news; fourth, the distortion and suppression of news for political motives. I think that is a fair summary of the points which the hon. Gentleman wished to be considered. There is one curious omission from the list, however, to which I shall refer later.
Let me take the four points one by one. First of all, investigation of ownership and control. I think everyone, even those who dislike the findings of the Commission, will admit that the Commission made a very careful and exhaustive study of the financial provision of the various newspapers and newspaper companies. They have set out in great detail where the control lies and what are the holdings. They have said what is true, that there is no mystery connected with it and that it could have been found out by anyone on application to Somerset House. They have done all of us a useful service by setting out, in compendious form, the results of their investigations. I think we are all agreed that those investigations show that there is no hidden finance in the British newspaper world, no mysterious influence behind the scenes which by financial control might influence the policies and bearing of those newspapers. So much for the first point.
The second point was much more serious—the allegation that in some sections and places the Press was approaching a monopoly due to the large growth in the series of newspaper chains. In that connection, if hon. Members will look again at our last Debate, they will see that the name of Lord Kemsley was frequently, perhaps over-frequently, mentioned. A perfectly genuine fear which I think all of us would share was voiced by the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras—that this monopoly, this increase


of the chain, might reach a point where the public could not really get anything but a particular brand of political opinion shoved down their throats whether they wanted it or not, and in particular, that because of their deliberate action many of the independent newspapers we used to know and appreciate were being forced out of life.
That was a genuine cause of anxiety and one which certainly deserved investigation. But the assertion that this process had already gone so far that monopoly existed, and that the chains were deliberately driving independent newspapers out of existence—wild claims of that kind—have been wholly disproved by the result of the Commission's findings. If Members will look at paragraph 199 which opens the chapter dealing with the growth of the chains, they will find a most delicate rebuke to the Government who, in their terms of reference, without waiting for evidence to be heard, had inserted this allegation of monopolistic control. This is what the Royal Commission said:
We have found it convenient to think of this part of our inquiry in terms of concentration of ownership. There is nothing approaching monopoly in the Press today.

Mr. Driberg: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will go on with that subject a little further, because I am sure he agrees that the Commission also established the existence of local monopolies at any rate, and recommended their reference to the Monopolies Commission.

Mr. Stanley: I am only dealing at the moment with the rebuke given by the Commission to the Government for having deliberately inserted the word "monopolistic" into their terms of reference.
I now pass to the paragraphs which, as hon. Members know, come very much later and deal with the Commission's finding on this matter. They are set out at considerable length in paragraphs 344, 345 and 346. They are very long and I cannot quote them all, but hon. Members, no doubt, will quote any part which appeals to them. However, there are several statements which the House ought to note. The first is this:
We have reached the conclusion that the case against chains has been overstated. This is especially so of the predatory habits which

we were invited to condemn. The chains have not habitually invaded provincial towns and crushed independent competitors out of existence.
It goes on to give certain instances, I think seven, in which independent newspapers had gone out of existence, and it was found that in only two cases was that due to the competition between those newspapers and a chain newspaper. It ends up by saying:
The lesson has apparently been learned"—
because the Commission were dealing with losses by chains through internecine war—
and with the exception of two papers whose lack of success could be attributed to other causes, no independent daily competing with a chain daily has ceased publication since 1932.
On the other side of the account, chains have undoubtedly preserved and for a time run at a loss papers which otherwise would presumably have ceased publication. … In fact, however, chain ownership does not necessarily produce uniformity or even similarity in the papers.… We were impressed by the importance which the chains attached to maintaining the local tradition of their papers and by the degree of practical independence, particularly in local affairs, which the chain editors who gave evidence appeared to enjoy.
Finally, in paragraph 604 they deal with the proposed measures to break up chains or restrict their growth, pleas for which had been made during the Debate in this House. The report says:
Proposals were put before us for legislation to break up the existing chains or to prevent their growth beyond a given size. Since we do not consider that chain ownership is undesirable in itself, or that concentration of ownership is at present so great as to be contrary to the best interests of the public, we do not recommend measures to break up existing concentrations.
When hon. Members think of some of the accusations that were made and the things that were said about chains and about Lord Kemsley in particular, can Lord Kemsley be blamed for regarding these passages as showing the failure of the attack?

Mr. Symonds: Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to suggest that all is right with the chains. If it were why should the Commission at the end of paragraph 350 say:
… we should deplore any tendency on the part of the larger chains to expand, particularly by the acquisition of further papers in areas where they are already strong"?
If everything is all right with the chains why put that in?

Mr. Stanley: Surely the Commission means that that does not exist at present. What the Commission says is that that point has not been reached. In fact, no damage has been done. Let me read it again:
Since we do not consider that chain ownership is undesirable in itself, or that concentration of ownership is at present so great as to be contrary to the best interests of the public, we do not recommend measures to break up existing concentrations.
That is not what hon. Members opposite were saying in the Debate. They were saying that it had gone too far already. What the Commission say is that no damage has occurred, and what they are referring to is something that might happen in the future. During the Debate hon. Members opposite were attacking existing chains, and that is the attack which paragraph 604 refutes completely.
I pass on to the third point, the influence of advertising on the Press. This was a matter in which I think the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) took a particular interest and speeches were made on the same subject by other hon. Members. It was represented that it was a well-known fact that advertisers exercised their influence in regard to the presentation of news and views. When my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) said that he did not know of any such practice, the hon. Member went so far as to say:
When I hear experienced journalists like the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) and the hon. Member for Holborn (Mr. Aitken) seriously tell this House that advertisers exercise no influence on editorial policy. I can only say that they are too innocent to live. I just want to take them out into a wood and cover them with leaves."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428 c. 540.]
A strange desire, but if there is to be any romping with the foliage it seems that my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green, in view of the Royal Commission's Report, has the right to do it, because these allegations were put before the Royal Commission and they were uncompromisingly rejected.
If hon. Members look at paragraph 527 they will see there these words:
We have some evidence that individual advertisers occasionally seek to influence the policy of a newspaper or to obtain the omission or insertion of particular news items. Any attempt by an advertiser to exploit his

position in this way is to be condemned, and we are glad to record that such attempts appear to be infrequent and unsuccessful.
Indeed, the whole tenor of the preceding remarks show that they regard this charge of the influence of advertisers upon the presentation of news as being wholly unfounded.
I now come to the fourth of the hon. Member's charges, the distortion or suppression of news, and I am sure that all of us would condemn such instances, whether they occurred in the Press which is favourable to us or in that section which is favourable to our opponents. No one could possibly say—and I shall deal with this later—anything in defence of instances of that kind, and I am going to say frankly at once that here on the fourth of the four points with which the hon. Gentleman is concerned, the Press does not emerge as scatheless as it does from the other three points with which I have already dealt. Even then it is right to put this matter in its proper perspective, and if hon. Members will look at paragraph 394 they will see these words:
When allowance for these differences has been made, the research and evidence show, in our opinion, first that the political factor in the selection and presentation of news is apparent in all the national papers, and second that it can often be accounted for by legitimate differences of opinion on news value.
Finally:
Within these limits, political bias operates neither constantly nor consistently, whether as between different papers or as between different issues of the same paper; and occasionally effects which appear at first sight to spring from undue bias are found on examination to be equally attributable to other causes.
It is only right to put the matter in its true perspective, that this is not a deliberate and continuing attempt to commit these professional misdemeanours, but is something which does occur though it is not a matter of continued habit.
I also want to stress another point. In this paragraph, the Commission say:
It is apparent in all the national papers.
It is a question of the national Press as a whole, and not a question, as many hon. Members have tried to make it, of a political division of the Press. It is not true, as is sometimes put forward, that all the goats are on one side and all the sheep are on the other; all the papers of the Left are Sir Galahads in shining armour riding in quest of the


truth while all the papers on our side are just shabby scoundrels. The condemnation under this fourth heading falls alike on the national papers as a whole, Left and Right, Tory and Socialist.

Mr. Haydn Davies: The popular Press.

Mr. Stanley: Certainly, the popular Press. I leave out the quality Press. Instances are given here, some from Conservative and some from Labour journals. Indeed, the process still goes on. I do not know whether hon. Members noticed a very curious omission only the other day. They will remember, I expect, as it is not very long ago, a little incident which took place on 20th July, when Lord Ammon, who had had a little difference with the Government the day before, made a statement in which he said that the Government had gone crazy. That was on the morning of the 20th. I should have thought that was of considerable news value. It is unusual for a Chief Whip to say things like that, whatever he may think. I am sure the Patronage Secretary will agree with me. It was not unimportant. It vas important enough to ensure Lord Ammon the sack within 24 hours. Yet, if we look at the issue of the "Daily Herald" for 21st July, we shall not find any reference whatsoever to the statement by Lord Ammon.
Is not that a clear case of suppression of an item of news value which might be inconvenient to the political opinions held? Of course, I know perfectly well that kindly people are going round putting a more charitable explanation on it. They are saying that the editorial staff of the "Daily Herald" are so much in touch with Members of the Government that they did not realise the news value of that statement. I do not think that we can accept that as an explanation. We must regard it as a more obvious case of the suppression of news because of political bias. So I say that when we are condemning the national Press for this kind of action let us not be hypocrites and pretend that the fault lies with only one section of the Press, that section which we on this side happen to support.
What can we do about it? I do not want to make the Press non-partisan. It would be hideously dull if every newspaper had to preserve an attitude of complete

impartiality, had to sit on the fence all the time; had, in fact, to model the whole of its issue on the leading article of "The Times." I do not think that that really corresponds to a public demand. We are naturally combative. We like taking sides. I do not think there is any harm at all in a newspaper definitely and to our knowledge taking a side and allowing people who like that view to buy the newspaper that gives it, while others take some other newspapers that give views more favourable to them.
I do not believe that it is really impossible to combine the two things, being partisan and being fair. I do not think we can go to the length of always setting out scrupulously at the same length both sides of the question, awl without any indication of one's own view, and saying that there is nothing between that position and never giving the other fellow a show at all. I say let the newspaper be partisan, but let it give the reader enough liberty to disagree with its conclusions if he wants to.
We set a pretty good example in this House. We are partisan and I hope that we shall remain partisan. The strength and vitality of this House depends on our being partisan. We do not think it necessary when we get up to speak to put the whole of the other fellow's case before we begin to put our own, but we note when any hon. Member, in stating a partisan case, is stating that case unfairly. It might not be a matter of Order or anything that we can take action against, but we note that hon. Member down for future reference next time he gets up to speak.
Let us realise that we are asking the Press to adopt even higher standards than we have to adopt ourselves. There is no need whatsoever for the Lord President of the Council to bring forward in his speech any of the points which are unfavourable to his case. He relies upon me to do it. I hope he does not think that I have let him down in any way. That sort of thing cannot be done in a newspaper. It is not enough to say that the other fellow can go and buy another newspaper and read the opposite point of view. We really cannot expect that to happen with the vast majority of the people. Somehow or other the Press has to be less partisan than we think ourselves justified in being in this House.
I do not see why, even now, it cannot do it.
The best help that this House can give is to say two things tonight with great clarity. The first thing is that the party which is supported by a newspaper which happens to be guilty of one of those suppressions does not like it and does not want it. We do not want that kind of thing, even if it is supposed to be serving our own advantage. In the first place, we do not think that it does serve our own advantage and, secondly, if it did, we should not think it the right way to do it. We have sufficient confidence in our own points of view to be ready to have them submitted to the public, and finally to the electorate, without any distortions of that kind. Secondly, I do not believe that the public like it. They do not like being fooled. They may like a good scrapping speech or article. They may like their papers to be partisan, but they do not like being fooled with suppression of news. If the public whom it is supposed to please do not like it, who does like it? Is there anything to lose by remedying it?
That leads me on to what is a much more difficult and greater defect in the Press today. It is the curious omission in the points raised by the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras. It is true that there are no politics in this point, and perhaps that is why he left it out, but to me it is a far more serious allegation against the Press than those with which we have dealt up to now. It is the allegation dealt with in the Commission's Report, paragraphs 481 to 496, of triviality and sensationalism. There is no politics in that and there is no division in the popular Press on political lines.
Yet there cannot be anyone here who has not from time to time been revolted by some of the stuff that has been put out for the public in the public Press. I recognise that to some extent it is unfair to blame the Press. To some extent one has to blame the public, and if one blames the public, one has to blame to some extent people like my predecessors and myself and all hon. Members of this House who have been here some time and have not been able yet to build up an educational system to raise the public taste above the stuff which is now being provided for the public.
I quite see that we cannot expect the editor or proprietor with tremendous responsibility on him—not just a few thousand pounds of his own money but a tremendous organisation with tremendous capital investment, great sums of money belonging to the shareholders, and large numbers of people employed by him—to go so far beyond what he believes to be public taste as to jeopardise the security of all that estate. I do not think it is fair that we should ask any of them to do that.
However, are we quite certain and are they quite certain—could they not, perhaps, find out?—that they are not now a little behind public taste. That public taste, as is evidenced in many ways, may have begun over the last few years, particularly the years since the beginning of the war, to change and expand, perhaps still slowly but nevertheless perceptibly. Might it not be a fact that in some cases now the Press is actually encouraging feelings which might otherwise have subsided?
Here again, what can the House of Commons do about it? I am afraid that I do not think there is very much. I do not think this sort of thing is susceptible to legislation, except very rarely. We had one instance in the old days when we banned the publication of details of divorce cases. I think that was very wise, and it proved a very successful action, but it was under particular circumstances and it is not easy to find anything quite like it.

Mr. Paget: Would the right hon. Gentleman apply that to murder?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. I was about to say that I thought that to extend that to criminal cases—I speak as no expert, but merely as a layman—would land us on very dangerous ground indeed. If we were to lay down by statute the exclusion of evidence given in criminal cases we should appear to take away from the general range of accused people one of their greatest safeguards; that is, that the public as a whole should be cognisant—even if they do not themselves go to the courts and listen to how justice is conducted—of what happens by being told by the Press so that they may judge, as a jury themselves, whether our judicial system is fair and right.
I would certainly regard an extension of what occurs in the case of divorce, into the range of criminal cases as being extremely dangerous. We have occasional instances. I remember one or two where the House has been able to ventilate particularly bad cases, but mainly I believe we have to make up our minds that if we are to put these things right, and everybody wants them to be put right, they will be put right not by us legislators in the House of Commons but by the Press and by the public.
That brings me to the point about the proposed Press Council. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the other proposals of the Royal Commission, but I shall not deal with them because they are not very important in character. I think it can be said that the Opposition agree with them all, and that they will have whatever support is needed. I want to refer only to the Press Council. It is true that the Press Council is recommended by the Royal Commission on a variety of grounds. I shall not this afternoon deal with the other grounds; I want just to deal with it from the point of view that I am now discussing, because the Royal Commission thought that the Press Council could be of some help in raising the standard of the Press in two respects—the fair presentation of the news and abstention from sensationalism. That is the main interest of the Press Council to me.
I do not pretend to know whether that will succeed—I do not know enough about the organisation of the Press—but I am certain that it cannot succeed without the wholehearted co-operation of the Press. Unless the Press come into the Press Council meaning to play and believing that some use can be made of it, then whether we set it up or not does not really matter because it will be just a façade. That is why I do not take very seriously the right hon. Gentleman's closing remarks which presaged quite fairly the possibility of a statutory body if no voluntary body was set up. Frankly, I do not believe that a statutory body set up in defiance of the wishes of the Press and against the wishes of the Press would have any chance of success. Therefore, as the success of the Council depends on Press co-operation, it is for the Press to

decide, and I am content to leave it with them to decide.
However, I hope that in coming to their decision they will have this in mind. I have tried to show—and I believe—that the grosser partisan attacks made upon certain sections of the Press have been defeated by the Report of the Royal Commission, but that does not mean that even people like myself, who believe in that defeat and who rejoice at it, think that all is for the best in the best of all possible Presses. We also feel that there are things to be put right, and I hope that if the Press for some reason or another decide that a Press Council is not feasible, they will at any rate put before us some alternative way of dealing with the two accusations which have been made, two accusations which have not been wholly disproved and which somehow or other we must wipe out.
Certainly we all expect from those in authority that if they say that the Press Council is not the right way to do it, they will tell us what is the right way. We shall look with very great interest, first on their decision as to the Press Council and, secondly, if that is negatived, to any alternative, because it is the interests of hon. Members on this side of the House just as much as in the interests of hon. Members opposite, just as it is of everybody whom we represent in Parliament, that by some means or other we should eliminate, first, the deliberate distortion of news and, secondly, any unhealthy pandering to crude sensationalism.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: If I may speak again by leave of the House, I think I can clear up the misunderstanding which I am afraid was in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) about the discussion on broadcasting in the House on 16th July, 1946. I did not then say that the Government were going to appoint the Royal Commission on the Press. What I said was:
All great channels for the dissemination of information to the public would, the Government believe, benefit from having their state of health examined by an independent inquiry from time to time, and we do not exclude the Press from that consideration. In the interests of the health and the very freedom of the Press, which is vital to our constitutional liberties, we do not exclude the


Press in principle from that consideration for it itself, as it has every right to do, has vigorously demanded an inquiry into the B.B.C., and the National Union of Journalists—who certainly believe in the freedom of the Press, as I do—have demanded in the interest of the freedom of the Press a somewhat similar inquiry into various matters connected with modern monopolistic or chain or group newspaper organisations in this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1946; Vol. 425. c. 1084.]
Later on, and this is where the misunderstanding may have arisen, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken) in starting his speech said:
The most interesting passage in the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman was his irrelevant announcement that the Government intend to set up an inquiry into the state of the Press.
MR. MORRISON: The right hon. Gentleman should not cause me to repeat myself. He knows that I did not say that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1946; Vol. 425, c. 1098.]
In fact, I did not say that the Government would set up an inquiry, I only said there was a case for considering it. The deputation, it is perfectly true, was received a few days afterwards. [Laughter.] This is quite true. In the final paragraph of the communiqué on that deputation, it was said that I had stated:
I will report your representations to the Prime Minister and my colleagues in the Government. As you will appreciate, I am not in a position today to say whether the Government will institute any inquiry or not. If such an inquiry should be instituted, it would have as its object furthering and making wider and more genuine the freedom of the British Press.
Therefore, there was no announcement of a decision to appoint the Royal Commission on either of those dates. That announcement was made at the end of the Debate on the Motion moved by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Stanley: I must confess that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman has not relieved my mind of confusion. Let me again put my point to the right hon. Gentleman. He will find it in his own speech at column 551. It was this, that he told us at some length about a deputation which he had received from the National Union of Journalists—

Mr. Morrison: What date?

Mr. Stanley: 29th October.

Mr. Morrison: That was after the deputation.

Mr. Stanley: In the Debate on the Press the right hon. Gentleman gave us a long story about receiving the deputation. He told us how they came to him—grave, earnest men. Then he came to the conclusion that they had made out a strong prima facie case, and went on to say:
It was because of that"—
because of the deputation—
that I was authorised by my colleagues to announce during the Debate on broadcasting that the Government thought that the request was worthy of consideration.…[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428, c. 551.]
Now we find, as I knew to be the case, that the right hon. Gentleman made the statement on broadcasting on 16th and did not receive this deputation until 22nd.

Hon. Members: Answer.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu: I apologise to the House that, when this Debate has only been in progress for as little as two hours, I as a back bencher should insinuate myself into it. It seems to me that a tremendous amount of time on this important subject has been dissipated by all kinds of irrelevancies and backstairs speculation in which the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) specialises.
There was a stage when he was about two-thirds of the way through his speech when I really regretted that he had been elected, or had himself elected to open the case of the Opposition in this Debate. Like all hon. Members of this House, I know of him as a brilliant after-dinner speaker. I have heard him making brilliant speeches in this House after breakfast, but this was the first time I have heard him make a speech before he had an opportunity to refresh himself. And after about two-thirds of that speech I was tempted to beg of him not to repeat the experiment. However, the last half of his speech seemed to me to be not merely a contradiction of much of the tone of the earlier part but, indeed, to be fully worthy of consideration by the newspaper profession and by this great House.
He began by saying that he had no experience of the newspaper profession. But the skill with which he selected quotations from the Report to justify his own side of the case would get him a job in


Fleet Street any day of the year. He was selective about some of the statements in the Report and he was sweeping in his generalisations about one memorandum which was produced by my own trade union, the National Union of Journalists.
It was clear that he had never read it because he said, referring directly to the memorandum, that it was perfectly obvious that the Union was not concerned with professional standards but that for party political purposes it was making a sweeping attack on a large section of the Press. He justified this charge from what he said were his own observations but, at the conclusion of his speech, he used the sort of words that were in fact used in that memorandum he had attacked. He and the Union were really of one mind in approaching this subject. One of the most significant parts of the memorandum of the National Union of Journalists was this:
Hitherto the British Press has enjoyed a high reputation, and it is no danger to that reputation to admit that there is room for improvement.
That, put slightly better, is what the right hon. Gentleman himself finally said.
We ourselves are not very happy about certain perceptible tendencies which might do harm to our great traditions.
It was in that spirit, and not in the spirit of a cheap political trick, that this great Union pressed upon the Government the desirability of having an investigation into the position of the Press.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: Would not the hon. Gentleman admit that, if they had a political trick in mind, they would have to put it forward as something else? They could not very well say, "This is a political trick."

Mr. Mallalieu: As I have often thought from his articles, my old friend the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) is too smart by a half. He has become so cynical after long experience in Fleet Street and in the Conservative Party that he cannot see good motives in anybody. I believe there are enormous numbers of journalists who really have the interest of their profession at heart and are anxious to see that it is improved by any means on which we can lay our hands.

Mr. Baxter: rose—

Mr. Mallalieu: A tremendous amount of time has been wasted on backchat, and I want to get on with my speech.

Mr. Baxter: But I did not say that it was a political trick; I merely said, if it were a political trick.

Mr. Mallalieu: I will leave the hon. Gentleman to work out his convolutions by himself. The right hon. Member for West Bristol made considerable play with the evidence given before the Royal Commission by various hon. Members of this House, including myself. He referred particularly to the question of the pressure of advertising and the effect that advertisers have on what is said in the editorial columns and in the news columns of the newspapers. There again he was highly selective. He did not quote one part of the paragraph which I myself would select for the benefit of my case, namely, paragraph 527, which says:
So long as papers do not pay without advertising revenue, a newspaper may well think twice before it adopts any policy which is likely to reduce advertisers' demands for its space.
That is not a charge but it is a suggestion that these accusations about advertising pressure may after all have something to them. However, I will give the right hon. Gentleman much of his case on that part of it, that our evidence was unsatisfactory—at least my own evidence was—in the sense that it could not be proved. That does not necessarily mean that it was not true. It could not be proved for a number of reasons. When one goes into a newspaper office and takes on a job, one does not go there as a Gestapo or as a "nark." One does not say to oneself "In 10 years' time someone may appoint a Royal Commission, so I will keep all the evidence of all the things I disapprove of." One just does the job. Secondly, many of the instructions to which exception can rightly be taken are given by word of mouth.
Then there is the further point that anyone who happened at the time of the Royal Commission to be working actively on a newspaper would think twice about saying anything to the detriment of the newspaper by which he was employed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol has a gentlemanly code


of conduct. I am quite certain that if he were my newspaper boss and if he were to think that certain criticisms I made of his newspaper were made honestly, even though they might be wrong-headed, he would not take action against me in the sense of dismissing me from my job. But there can be no such assurance about the attitude of executives and proprietors in Fleet Street. They do not accept that code of conduct. They demand, as seems pretty clear from some of the statements they themselves made before the Commission, absolute loyalty to the organisation which a man is serving and will look very harshly at anybody who produces evidence to the detriment of that organisation.

Mr. H. Strauss: If the hon. Gentleman is leaving the point of the evidence submitted by the National Union of Journalists, may I ask am I right in supposing that he does not accept paragraph 387 of the Report and what it says about that evidence? Does he ask the House to differ from the description of that evidence given by the Royal Commission?

Mr. Mallalieu: Yes, I do in certain very marked respects. The Commission seemed to think that it was the job of the National Union of Journalists to provide a comprehensive survey of the whole British Press, but that was not the job of the Union; it was the job of the Royal Commission itself. The job of the Union was simply to put forward certain examples which would provide a prima facie case for this comprehensive survey. I think that in that particular paragraph, in its treatment of the evidence of the Union, the Royal Commission was a bit harsh.
But in spite of the great difficulties in producing evidence—from working journalists, at any rate—it is remarkable that whenever the Commission itself had practical experience under its own nose of the working of the Press it was inclined to be critical of that working. There was the case of the "Observer," referred to by the Lord President of the Council. There was the statement made subsequent to the ending of the Commission by Sir George Waters about the treatment by the Press of the Commission itself. The most remarkable piece of evidence to come from the Royal Commission was that obtained by a survey

carried out by the Commission itself of what actually appeared in the newspapers of the treatment of particular subjects by particular newspapers.
I want now to leave the origins of the Commission and its difficulties in ascertaining the full truth of the present state of the newspaper industry and to pass to the matters with which the right hon. Member for West Bristol dealt in the latter part of his speech, covering especially the question of the need for a Press Council. The Royal Commission stated, I do not know with what truth, that the British Press is inferior to none. I do not know whether that is true; because I do not have experience of all the newspapers of the different countries. But whether or not that is true, although it is very gratifying it is not particularly relevant to the present position. We are not merely concerned with whether our Press is no worse than anybody else's. What we really are concerned with is that it should be as good as it possibly can be. If we ask ourselves, from our lay or our professional experience, whether or not the Press is as good as it possibly can be, I think most people in this House and, indeed, in Fleet Street, would say, "No. It can be greatly improved."
If that is our answer, that the Press is not as good as it should be or could be, the question then arises, will the Press of its own free will and by its own machinery bring about the possible and desirable improvements? I cannot answer that with certainty, but there is evidence that it is unlikely that the Press itself through its existing machinery will bring about those improvements.
The Royal Commission has stated that it has discovered, in certain sections of the Press at any rate, a most uncritical spirit; that it is not self-critical; that it has not got powers of looking at itself and finding out what is wrong with itself. It is a very curious thing that Fleet Street, or the Press as a whole, when dealing with faults in others, is full of muscular rectitude, giving talks straight from the shoulder telling people when they are wrong; but when other people suggest to the Press various places where the Press may be wrong, the newspapers then become shrinking violets biting their nails and stamping their little feet in anger. I think it is most unlikely that the Press of itself will bring about the


improvements we want to see in the newspapers of this country. Therefore, I believe it will be necessary to have some sort of outside body like the Press Council, set up, preferably, by the Press itself, but if not, by the Government.
We are all agreed that the running of a newspaper is not like the running of any other sort of firm. A newspaper is not just the business of its proprietor for him to do what he thinks fit with it. The Press is of immense constitutional importance. It affects the everyday lives of everybody in society. It is, therefore, right and just that society itself should have a say in how that Press is run. I welcome, therefore, the proposal not merely to set up a Press Council but that that Council should be composed in part of people from outside the industry itself representing the "consumer interest."
That Press Council can do a tremendous amount of good. It can certainly help to defend the Press. Here I speak as a journalist, if I may, rather than as a Member of this House. It is, for example, a very bad habit of politicians, whenever they say something stupid at the weekend, to complain bitterly that they have been misrepresented in the Press. If there were a Press Council it would be possible for a reporter who had been accused of such misrepresentation, to take his notes to the Council and say, "I have been charged with misrepresentation. Here are my notes." In that way, therefore, the Council could act as a means of defending the Press as well as of regulating it.
But it is mainly as a means of trying to raise the standard of the Press that the Council will be enormously valuable, and it would be most valuable if we were to add something, or if the Press itself would add something, to the powers suggested for it by the Royal Commission. I should like to see the Council have the power, when it has criticised a newspaper adversely for its conduct, to force that newspaper to print the criticisms which the Council have made of it. If it did that, it would perform a very valuable function indeed.
I want to deal with one last point about the Report, which is of enormous importance. I myself am dissatisfied,

from what little experience I have, with the approach of the Commission to the question of the tendency towards monopoly in the British Press. Nobody says that there is a monopoly—there is not; but that there is a tendency seems to me to be really beyond doubt. The figures given by the Commission for the number of daily and Sunday papers in existence in 1921 was 167. In 1948 that number had fallen to 128; and the number of nationals had fallen from 12 to nine.
The present-day number of 128, of course, are not all individual independent newspapers. Many of them are in chains like the Kemsley chain, which covers about 17 per cent. of the circulation of all general daily and Sunday newspapers. Others have only a tiny little circulation and are dwarfs compared with the circulation of the great popular newspapers like the "Daily Express" and the "Daily Mirror," which together cover, I think, something like 26 per cent. of the total daily circulation. There is here a growing tendency towards contraction in the number of newspapers and a growing concentration of newspaper power in a few hands.
Apart from the evidence of figures, we ourselves know perfectly well from our own experience that all shades of political opinion are not adequately expressed in the British Press. Even inside the Conservative Party itself there are different sections of opinion. There is the section of opinion which may possibly be said to be led by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler), another section which is possibly led by the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers), and it is just conceivably possible that inside the Conservative Party there are a small number of people who really agree with the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). Yet, there are no means of expressing those three different points of view. The "Morning Post," for example, a great newspaper in days gone by, has been snuffed out, and I regret that very much. The same happens in the Liberal Party, though they have not three views, but almost as many views as there are Liberals. In the Labour Party there are great ranges of opinion, but we have only one daily by which they can be expressed. Possibly that is why that great newspaper


is at times a trifle dull. There is no question that we have a feeling that there ought to be more newspapers.
I put to the Royal Commission a suggestion of how we could secure more newspapers. I suggested to them that it would be a good idea deliberately to restrict the amount of advertising revenue that any one newspaper could take to itself. I said that would do two things; first, it would mean a contraction in circulation, because one cannot afford to have a large circulation unless one is getting correspondingly large revenue. That in its turn would mean that where there was a contraction in the circulation an opportunity would be opened up for other people to begin a newspaper of their own. In addition to that, it would mean that advertisers crowded out of existing newspapers would be looking for new vehicles of advertising, the new newspapers, and would, therefore, provide them with the revenue they needed to carry on.
The Royal Commission considered this suggestion and offered only two criticisms of it. They said it might possibly result in a reduction in the quality of the newspapers. It is possible that that might happen, but there are tremendous economies which newspapers could make if they wanted without sacrificing quality—economies in some of the higher grade salaries, economies in the amount of money spent on stunts like those at the Albert Hall, air displays, and the rest, which are extraneous to the ordinary work of newspapers. They could make those economies and still maintain their high quality.
The second criticism was that it would interfere with a man's freedom of choice to get the newspaper he wanted, that a man who liked the "Daily Express" might find himself, under this scheme, unable to get it. But to a great extent that happens now. I happen not only to like the "Manchester Guardian," but to like reading it at breakfast. I cannot do that here, at least not the late news, because it is published in Manchester. There is no real freedom of choice in that particular instance and, of course, my freedom of choice is also limited by the fact that no newspaper fully expresses the point of view I like to see expressed. There is no newspaper which suits me completely.
Even if those objections were valid, they would be insignificant compared with the advantages which could be derived from the proposal substantially to increase the existing number of newspapers. It would mean that instead of a small group of men over-emphasising their views and sending them out on a conveyor belt throughout the newspapers of the country, there would be dozens of little newspapers with real roots in the communities from which they sprang all throwing their common views, ideas and slants into the common pool and so helping to educate and improve the standard of thought in this democracy. I believe that would provide an enormous stimulus to the existing newspapers and an enormous stimulus to the people who read them. I believe that sort of proposal, plus the proposal of the Press Commission for a Press Council, will, if carried out, help to provide this country with a Press which is really worthy of it.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: I do not want to spend any time going back into the origins of this inquiry, except to say that there was criticism from the National Union of Journalists and, in addition, a considerable doubt in the minds of the public as to whether all was well with the Press.
I believe the Royal Commission have done a very good job in giving us the facts and in surveying the whole position and coming to a very balanced judgment. I was one who voted for the appointment of the Royal Commission. I voted freely and unwhipped. I did so with great confidence, not that it was a political manoeuvre—it may have been, I do not know and I am not very interested whether it was or not—but I was sure it was desirable that we should know more about this very important part of our democratic institutions which is described as the Press, because it has a very big part to play in the political life of this country.
I should not like to try to sum up in a few words exactly what the Commission have said, or to appraise the degree of blame or praise which the Royal Commission have assigned to the Press, if I might use that wide term—and I do not agree that it ought to be used, because the


Press varies so much. So far as I can see, the Lord President of the Council erred a little in emphasising the criticisms which the Royal Commission had revealed and the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), speaking for the Opposition, treated us to very large sections of the Royal Commission Report—which some of us had already read—which refuted charges about the Press.
In my political life, which is not a very long one, I find that the public generally have been beginning to get a little doubtful of the Press. Their confidence has been a little undermined during the time I have been in Parliament, which, as I say, is not so very long. The old feeling of the people who are reasonably political was that a thing must be true if they read it in the newspapers. At least that is what my country electors felt, but they have rather changed that point of view now and there is another tendency for people to say, "You cannot believe everything you read." They are bewildered and I think that a very undesirable state of affairs, for which the Press are responsible.
Whether it is, as the Royal Commission say, that with the increase of circulation of the Press a different type of newspaper has had to come into being with a different type of editor, or whether it is for other reasons is not important to what I am saying at the moment. The public have been losing confidence in the Press a little and we have realised that more clearly because of the B.B.C. The public have not lost confidence in the impartiality of the B.B.C. People sometimes read their newspapers and listen to the B.B.C. news, and rather take it for granted more than is desirable that their papers will be biased and will present only one side of the case, and that they will get something less biased by listening to the news.

Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman is really saying that many people now do not believe what they read in the newspapers. Can he give us an example of some item of news which would fall under that criticism? Can he tell us what kind of item appears in the newspapers which people do not believe is true?

Mr. Roberts: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can find many specific cases

referred to in the Report of the Royal Commission and in the evidence given. I could give examples, as I think all politicians could from their own political history, which would not be outstanding and which might in some cases be rather trivial. I do not wish to give particular cases.
I am referring to the general gloss which a newspaper gives to the news—the selection of the news and the way it is presented. I do not know what would be the right word to use, but I would say that it was rather titivating the truth. That is the sort of thing of which I complain—a little altering of it, not so that one could say that it is definitely a false statement but so that it gives a misleading slant to the news, which is much subtler, and which I believe is doing much more to undermine public confidence in the Press than the falsification of news.
I believe that many journalists in Fleet Street are themselves conscious of this tendency and would like to see it put right. I believe that it could easily be put right by the large newspaper proprietors themselves. But I do not think one can leave the matter there. The fact that some newspapers and some owners and many journalists recognise that all is not well does not mean that the matter will be put right; it may very well get worse. As the "Manchester Guardian" said in its leading article—and if the "Manchester Guardian" feels it is a fair statement that is good enough for me—a very large part of the Report of the Royal Commission is extremely critical of the Press. Therefore, it seems to me that the general case has been made out by the Royal Commission that something ought to be done by somebody to put this matter right.
I do not think that I need be accused of not being a good friend of the freedom of the Press. The previous occasion on which I spoke about the Press was, so far as I can remember, in the middle of the war. Then I was putting the case of a paper which was being warned by the Government that it would have to mend its ways. I do not need to say that the Liberal Party has always stood for the freedom of the Press, and it seems to me axiomatic, therefore, that to take any steps which would draw the Government directly into this business would be a


mistake. The setting up of a Royal Commission is to my mind just about as far as the Government ought to go, so as to give us the facts, to tell us what the situation is. But whatever we do, I for one, and those with me in this party, do not want in any way to call in the Government against the individual large Press owner or against the Press as a whole.
Yet how are we to deal with the shortcomings, the imperfections that have been revealed? I think that one valuable effect of the Royal Commission may be to challenge what they themselves have described as the complacency of many people in Fleet Street. The Lord President of the Council referred to it. It is no use the Press saying "Well; politicians are complacent, and politicians are not always quite objective in stating a case," because although I might agree with the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) that a polemical Press is a good thing, it does not seem to me that it is the business of the Press to go into politics with a view to carrying a point of view.
One may leave liberty for individual papers to do that but it is not ultimately the function of the Press; it is the duty of political parties and individuals in politics. It is not the business of the Press primarily to achieve reforms, or to establish points of view or indeed to run political parties, as the Press has sometimes tried to do. That seems to me to be taking up the function of Members of Parliament and of political bodies, and to be forgetting that the business of the Press is to inform the public of the facts of politics and of events generally.
There is room for opinions too, and my belief in freedom does not suggest that I would agree to any action by the Government to prevent newspapers from being polemical. If a Press lord likes to try to start a political party, let him do so; it has happened in my time and was not a success, but I do not think it is a thing to be encouraged or something which this House or a large number of Members of this House would wish to see being done.
Of course we may, as politicians, also over-emphasise the importance of the Press. The party opposite won the last Election against an overwhelming

majority of the Press of this country. President Truman, and Roosevelt before him, did the same thing in the United States. But that, again, is not a reason for being complacent, if the Press can be better, if it can help to inform the British public better, if we could have a more enlightened appreciation of political problems in the minds of the public, and if the Press could help to bring that about. I do not appreciate the argument which the Press sometimes use to one, namely, "Why do you worry about what we say? You seem to be able to win elections against us." That does not seem to me to be a very good argument.
I think there is a place for the proposed Press Council provided that it is not influenced by any passing Government, that it is a free organisation. I do not feel very strongly on the issue of whether there should be laymen on it or not, because I do not believe it will be a success with or without laymen, unless Fleet Street and the newspapers, or the majority of them or enough of them to influence the minority which may not wish to participate, accept it and try to work it. I hope that Fleet Street, the newspapers, journalists and proprietors and this inchoate thing which we call the Press or Fleet Street or the newspapers, will decide that the case has been made out sufficiently strongly that all is not well with their affairs, and will be prepared to try this as a solution; or at least as a step in the right direction.
Speaking as a layman and not connected in any way with the Press, I think that the Royal Commission's recommendation about including laymen would be helpful. I should have thought it would give confidence to the public that this was not a closed corporation; that the public would have representatives; that the consumer of the newspaper would, in some general indirect way, be represented. Of course, a body of this sort might develop into a rather closed shop organisation and something which could in some circumstances, defeat the whole object of the Royal Commission. But whether it would work more successfully without laymen we would be able to judge from its annual reports and from its performance.
I am sure on the question of taste and sensationalism there is a place for


such a body. There would be a place where the consensus of opinion within the newspapers themselves could be brought to bear on the individual paper or the individual instance where good taste is over-stepped. It is all very well for a newspaperman to say, "Well, the public has the answer in its own hands. If you do not like the sort of things published in this paper or that, buy another one." But that may be very annoying to the public. A person may take a paper because he likes the sports page, and thinks that the sports writers in that newspaper are much better than others. He may be quite irritated to read something on the front or centre page which he regards as in bad taste, and something which he would rather not have seen in that particular newspaper. But, as I have said he takes the paper for quite different reasons.
The individual person who feels he has a grudge about something which is in bad taste has no recourse at all at the present time. It is no use for him to write to his Member of Parliament about it. It is no use writing to the editor of the paper about it. There is nothing that he or she can do and I think that there ought to be. A journalist may insinuate himself into a home in time of crisis and tragedy and something is published which disgusts the people concerned and their friends, and a lot of people who do not know them. There ought to be some recourse for such persons. It ought not to be to the courts; it cannot be to this place. It should be to a tribunal of the pressman's peers. It should be some body which can develop a sense of self-discipline within the newspaper world itself. I am sure the Press Council could deal with that.
Then there are the wider questions of bias in the reporting of news; of the integrity and independence of the pressmen themselves; of pensions and perhaps also of positively assisting journalists to improve their capacity for their job. The Royal Commission deals with this question of education. I think it a little delicate for someone who is not a journalist to speak about this matter. All I know of are the lobby correspondents who are at the top of their profession and I know how hard those journalists work to be well informed about every conceivable

subject. They are well informed, not only on current matters but on the recent political history, and they do know their subject from A to Z.
But that is not always true, and 1 do not always blame the journalists. The range of subjects reported in the Press nowadays makes it exceedingly difficult for reporters to know enough of the facts to be able to report sensibly a speech made about some subject which is perhaps just a little off the beaten road. I am sure that there is a case for assisting journalists to extend their own capacity for doing a good job. I see in the current issue of "World's Press News" that it is suggested that a Press centre might be established where journalists would have the opportunity of improving their qualifications for their job without a Press Council. I am not technically able to express an informed opinion about it, but it seems to me a good idea and some constructive work which the Press Council could do in addition to any self-disciplinary action which it might take. I should have thought that there was room for such a body.
I repeat, it seems to me absolutely essential that that body should not in any way be influenced by the Government of the day. I notice in "The Times" today a letter from a man who has had much experience in the Press, Mr. Gibson. He makes this point, which had also occurred to me, that in some ways a Press Council would strengthen the position of the Press in the event of a Government at any time trying to interfere with the freedom of the Press. Some people are suggesting that the Press Council might be the first step to some sort of Government control, but I think Mr. Gibson was right, that the Press Council would provide an organisation which would be much too strong to allow Government interference with the liberty of the Press.
I am glad I voted for this Royal Commission. I think it has put the position of the Press in the right perspective. Everything is not right. There is a tendency towards concentration—if one likes to use that term rather than the word "monopoly"—in some provincial districts. There is now the problem of how to deal with "chains" which have developed to such a state that there is a danger that only one point of view may be given. I hope that, having had the


suggestions of the Commission pointed out to them, the Press will have the vision themselves to take steps to correct matters; that then the Press will be able to do what I see as its main job so far as politics are concerned, which is to assist in presenting to the public political facts and political points of view so that the public can make a sensible judgment in political affairs.

6.40 p.m.

Sir Stanley Reed: ; I do not want to go into detail in connection with the remarks of the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts). I am a little uncertain whether he spoke about a Press mentor or a Press censor.

Mr. W. Roberts: A Press centre.

Sir S. Reed: I assure him that anybody who knows anything about newspaper work would recoil from that suggestion with horror and amazement. If there is anything calculated to emasculate the Press it is any form of censorship except in war-time.

Mr. Roberts: I did not speak of a Press censor but of a Press centre.

Sir S. Reed: How a Press centre is to be constituted otherwise than in the form of a Press Council I find it rather difficult to follow. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) suggested that newspapers should be strictly rationed on the amount of advertisement revenue they were entitled to take. How on earth any man who has ever had the remotest connection with journalism can put up so fantastic a suggestion, it passes the wit of man to conceive.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this Debate. If I pass beyond the ten minute rule which I imposed on myself when I came to this House, perhaps I may be forgiven on this occasion, because newspaper work has been my life's work and my memory goes back to newspaper days before most hon. Members of this House were born. It was in 1887 that I started my connection with the newspapers and there is hardly a phase of that work through which I have not passed in one way or another, down to that most degrading of occupations—a newspaper proprietor.
Many hon. Members at the time regretted the decision of the Government

to set up this Royal Commission. Now that it has met, done its work and produced its report, we are rather glad that that decision was taken. It has cleared the air to a remarkable degree. It is true that much of its work had been done by that elaborate analysis by P.E.P. and the little book by Mr. Wickham Steed published by the Penguin Press. This sober, informed and detailed review of the Press has an authoritative stamp as coming from a Royal Commission, which it could not have had if it had come from any other source.
The Report is valuable for many reasons. One is that it is so long that very few people will read it. It is true that 4,000 or 5,000 people have bought it, but buying Reports is very different from reading them. The analyses of the financial state of the Press is so complex that nobody except an accountant wilt understand them. I rather admire the wisdom with which the Commission has divided its work equally between the Report and the appendices. The appendices are so detailed and tedious that they pass as a record and nothing more. But now that the Report has been published, it has blown sky-high those allegations against the Press of which so much was heard in the House and in the country. We have an authoritative definition that there is no monopoly, no blacklisting and no general inaccuracy. There is no corrupt pressure and no undue influence by the advertisers. The final conclusion is that the British Press is inferior to none in the world.
That having been said, and all having quoted from the Report those parts which they think suit their own ideas or prejudices, there are one or two facts which are not in the Report and one or two points which have not been emphasised, to which I think it is well that we should direct our attention. I think that the stories of monopoly and pressure have been effectively dissipated. I want the House to believe that there was force behind them. Those who follow events know of the monopolistic influence and control which was going ahead in the provinces at a very rapid rate.
I know from my experience up and down the country that in great provincial towns where there were established papers of the highest repute, when I asked


how they were getting on, the reply was: "We can carry on very well as long as one of the newspaper barons does not come in here, backed with millions of other people's money, and invade our territory." There was among working journalists a very great apprehension lest they should be thrown out of their profession at any time through the acquisition of the papers they were serving or through the suppression of those papers in pursuance of a policy which was then being followed generally.
I ask the House not to judge the National Union of Journalists entirely by the gross blunders they made in putting up the weakest case ever put up by anybody before a Royal Commission. I can speak with some confidence on this matter, because I was never a member of the National Union of Journalists. That union was formed after I had severed my connection with the English Press. But they did a very great work in improving the status, the conditions of service and the salaries of the rank and file employed by the newspaper Press. I say with a certain amount of regret that they did not come into existence in the days when I was being rather brutally exploited myself. The working corps of journalists owe a very considerable debt to the National Union of Journalists, on the one hand, and to Lord Northcliffe, on the other. The National Union secured for them decent conditions of work, and Lord Northcliffe decided that the higher hierarchy of the Press were worth a sum equal to that paid to the heads of other professions.
That was in the days before Lord Northcliffe fell under the tyranny of the net sale. It was in the days of the "Daily Mail," a good halfpenny edition of "The Times." He brought in those brilliant men, Marlowe, Charles Hands, C. W. Steevens and Beach Thomas and others whose influence was a great power for good in those days. Lord Northcliffe of the net sales came down to the sweet pea, the standard loaf and the Owen Nares hat. Those were the days of his descent, but we can never forget what he did in the earlier days.
Where the National Union of Journalists, and those who speak for them, committed the fundamental error was in overstating their case and in misunderstanding

any possible remedy. It is true, as the Commission states, that there has been a certain recession in the development of the chain newspapers—that is the best term I can use. But what is the exact position? The figures are rather significant. According to the evidence, in the provinces 24 per cent. of the morning papers, 12 per cent. of the evening papers, 50 per cent. of the morning circulation and 20 per cent. of the evening circulation, are under one individual control.
That may be good or it may be bad. My impression, from my experience, is that it is not good that so large a portion of the provincial Press should be under one control, however disinterested and however great the integrity of the individual in control. Anyone who reads the speeches of the leaders of the great newspaper combines will know that they planned and intended to carry through a further great invasion of the provinces, and that they were only kept back by the difficulty of obtaining plants and premises in war conditions.
Turning to the remedy, this is where I think our friends went wrong in thinking that this tendency, if we conclude that it is undesirable, could in any way be wisely checked by statute or any form of legislative activity, for the remedy would have been far worse than the disease. The real remedy has been proved to be one that lies in the hands of the people themselves. After the most degrading competition in Newcastle between two monopolies, they decided to parcel Great Britain into spheres of influence, and they came down to the historic city of Bristol to tell the people of Bristol how many papers they could have and what papers they should have. The people of Bristol told them in very polite language where they got off. They decided to have their own newspaper, financed by their own citizens and controlled by their own tradespeople, and that newspaper dominates today. That remedy lies wherever it is needed and without any form of external support it lies in the hands of the people themselves.
There are one or two other points in the Commission's Report which have not been fully appreciated. It states that 50 per cent. of the revenue of newspapers comes from advertisements, but it does not go on to say that extensive newspaper


advertising is the price which we have to pay for a free Press, and that the fact that we have a free Press is entirely due to the support of advertisers, because no newspaper can be produced for the actual revenue which comes from circulation. Not only that, but if any hon. Member will take a reputable newspaper and cross out all the advertisements, he will see what sort of a newspaper he would have and he will realise the value of advertising in meeting his own needs.
I am a diligent reader of "The Times," and, except for the sporting page and the theatrical page, I read it all, but when I turn to page three, I find somewhat the best and most dignified examples of advertising to be seen anywhere in the newspaper Press. It has occurred to me that an experiment might be tried in turning to the main advertisers to write the leading articles, and I think we might receive some illumination.
Who are the great advertisers today? The older generation will remember how a particular soap was advertised by an expenditure of £112,000 a year, or how another firm sold a penny-farthing article for 1s. 1½d. by advertising to the extent of £115,000 a year. But these are only fleabites. The Government advertising is now running at between £400,000 and £500,000 a year, and never the slightest attempt at pressure is put on from any part of the Government in the tremendous advertising revenue which it places in the hands of the newspapers. When newspapers give their biggest headlines to those points in the Commission's Report which particularly display their own merits, and when they go about wearing the white waistcoats of blameless lives, it should be pointed out that there are one or two points which should be carefully considered. There is the paragraph in the Report which says:
The gap between the best quality papers and the general run of the popular Press is too wide, and the number of papers of the intermediate type is too small.
I cordially dislike those terms "national paper" and "quality papers." I shudder at the thought of newspapers being called "national," as they are no more national than I am a national of Great Britain. I should prefer the terms "newspaper of opinion," and "newspaper of sale." Looking at another paragraph in the Report, I find this:

In our opinion, the newspapers with few exceptions, failed to supply the electorate with adequate material for sound political judgment.
I have not seen that printed in letters of gold in any newspaper.
I would not be so presumptuous, looking back on my own experience, as to say to the great newspaper magnates what should be their conception of their functions, but I think they should ask themselves this question—What is the objective of our enterprise? Is it to influence the community, to bring a sober realisation of its responsibilities, duties, opportunities and its privileges, or is it just to sell a commodity? These two considerations are very far apart.
We may remember the General Election of 1906 when the mass of the newspapers did not support the Liberal Party and yet there was that great landslide in January, 1906. It happened again in July, 1945, when the superficial weight of the newspaper Press did not lie on the side of the Home Secretary and his colleagues, and yet we see the result reflected on the benches opposite today. It is quite true, as the Home Secretary will recognise, that they were extraordinarily lucky in the poll, and that while they have an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, they still only represent a minority of the electorate. On the other hand, I think these two experiences in fairly recent events shed some light on the real power of the Press to influence the country, as being very small in comparison with its mass circulations and the enormous amount of capital and energy which is directed to its organisation and extension.
From where, then, is that improvement—I will not say development—to come, which we should all like to see? Not in any form of administrative direction, control or influence from any Government, not only this Government or any other Government that might be formed in this country, because along that path lies disaster. Does it lie in the formation of the Press Council? Whether that Press Council should be formed or not is a matter for the newspaper Press itself. I have never found a newspaper man who placed very high hopes upon its effective functioning. On the whole, I think the newspaper world would be wise to adopt that suggestion and form the council.
There are two or three ways in which we might make the liberty of the Press greater still and give it a greater grip on the community and a greater power in the development of our national consciousness. I reject those passages in the Report which say that great editing is incompatible with a national newspaper as wholly unsound. In regard to recruitment and training, the Commission pay only passing attention to what used to be the method of recruitment to the Press. There were those taken in after a good general education who served four or five years' apprenticeship, and then passed on; and there were those who came direct from the universities. The two worked side by side, as, I think—and the Home Secretary will correct me if I am wrong—they did in the Post Office. In the Post Office they had men promoted from the counter and men from the higher ranks of the Civil Service, those with technical knowledge and those with the wider outlook derived from a university education.
Those two methods worked admirably. The man who served his apprenticeship became the editor if he was worthy of the post, and those who were not, remained newsmen for the rest of their lives. But they brought into journalism a knowledge of the industrial conditions of the country and the different sides of life—police court and the assizes—which gave them a sense of responsibility and pride in their craft which the pert office boy suddenly promoted can never have. Those who came from the universities brought in the culture and the wide outlook which come from a liberal education.
I am convinced that, in the long run—I think my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), touched upon this—the raising of the status of the newspaper Press will come through higher education. We have the unqualified endorsement from the Royal Commission that we shall find a higher standard of education in the school reflected in the development of the newspaper Press to an even higher standard than it has at present attained. Mr. R. D. Blumenfeld, who was connected with the popular Press for many years,

said that he thought the popular Press was falling below the standard of the product of the secondary school. I think that is perfectly true. But if the standard of the primary and the secondary school is to be judged by the five million people a day who read the "Daily—"—anybody can fill in the blank—that is a thing, I think, that teachers should seriously take into account.
I, as one who was intensely proud of his craft, and who, perhaps, had an unexpected amount of good fortune in that craft, had a startling experience a few years ago. I was asked to speak on the newspaper Press at a London club which is well known, or rather famous, for its plain living and high thinking. The living is certainly plain enough. After my speech, I was asked by a body of scientists and also of social workers if I would repeat to them what I had said, and advise them. They used words which I must say affected me very profoundly. They said, "We find that all we are trying to do in our scientific and social work for the community is being undermined by the false ideals put before these people by the popular Press." It is the same popular Press which gloats over the panties worn by "Gorgeous Gussie" and the slacks worn by film stars rather than on forces which lie deep in our national life.
I am glad that the Lord President of the Council has repudiated any idea of State action because that would be fatal to the cause we all have at heart. Despite the vindication of the Press by the Royal Commission, I think the Press would be wise to set up their own Commission to examine this point from time to time and to consider also those pages in the Report which have pointed out features in journalism that are rather disquieting to most of us today. But I am convinced that, in the main, the elevation of the Press which we all wish to see, must be achieved through the universities and schools in providing a standard of taste and discrimination. Then, we may rejoice that this work has not been without effect, but has been a milestone on the road to removing a mountain of prejudice and bitterness and also to attaining a newspaper standard which will be a source of national strength.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. Haydn Davies: My name has been mentioned so often in the course of this Debate, particularly by the first two speakers, that I am very glad to have the opportunity to make a few observations of my own on this important topic. The right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) quoted me so often that, in the end, his speech was almost a re-reading of the one I made originally in this House. However, I wish to thank him for the very fair way in which he gave the extracts.
It is rather strange to hear phrases like "triumphant vindication of the Press" come out of the Royal Commission's Report. Anyone who has read this Report cannot regard it as a vindication of the Press, because every page in it is a condemnation of the Press. I ask the House to consider this very carefully, because if we go on with one side saying that it is a vindication and the other side saying that it is not, we shall get completely at cross purposes. I propose, by means of quotations from the Report, to show exactly what it does say.
The statement by the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) that people no longer believe what they read in the newspapers is, I am afraid, the truth. Because I was concerned about the fact that people no longer believe what they read in the newspapers, I was prompted to put down a Motion in favour of this Royal Commission. The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) challenged the hon.' Member for North Cumberland to give an example of people not believing what they read in the newspapers. He is a distinguished ornament of the Beaverbrook organisation, and he will not be unfamiliar with the name of Mr. John Gordon, the Editor of the "Sunday Express." According to the Commission's Report, Mr. John Gordon is quoted as saying in a message on accuracy to his sub-editors and reporters:
I do not wish to be hypercritical, but the plain fact is, and we all know it to be true, that whenever we see a story in a newspaper concerning something we know about, it is more often wrong than right.

Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman will agree that we are both professional journalists. I agree with every word that

Mr. John Gordon said. The thing is perfectly obvious. The newspaper is dealing with 300 subjects a night. They cannot be experts on every part of the world. In comes a story. They handle it with the greatest possible accuracy; somebody named J. S. Smith appears as W. S. Smith. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] This is exactly what happens. Sometimes it goes further than that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I am sorry to take up the hon. Member's time; perhaps I had better deal with this if I catch Mr. Speaker's eye. Quite obviously, a man who is on the spot must see that that is exactly what Mr. John Gordon meant. I am not concerned about defending Mr. John Gordon, but that is the fact of the matter.

Mr. Haydn Davies: As the hon. Gentleman said, we are both professional journalists. I am not thinking about an initial wrong or a small slip of that kind. There are 100 pages of newspaper inaccuracies in this Report—100 pages of analysis of the treatment of national issues such as bread rationing, the National Coal Board and so on. I should like to know how this can be called a vindication of the British Press. Personally, I think this Report is a tragic commentary on the way the British Press is handled, and I shall endeavour to show why I think that is so. I should like to say this to the right hon. Member for West Derby—I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; I mean the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley)—

Mr. Stanley: Be accurate.

Mr. Haydn Davies: It so happens that the last time we had a Debate on the Press, West Derby was the constituency of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke for the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman has been having great fun with the Lord President of the Council. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has read paragraph 388 of the Royal Commission's Report. It says—and it is so true—
The Government, which is always doing things, is obviously more exposed to attack than the Opposition, which is only talking about them.
One would have been led to think, from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, that there was some deep plot behind the setting up of this Royal Commission of inquiry into the Press. I endeavoured to


show, when this matter was first debated, that that was completely untrue. I do not do things because the Lord President of the Council tells me to do them.

Mr. Stanley: Perhaps the Lord President does things because the hon. Gentleman tells him to do them.

Mr. Haydn Davies: I should like to believe that, but I have known my right hon. Friend too long to think that that is possible. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this was absolutely straight, clean and plain sailing, so far as we were concerned. There were no deep machinations behind it. It was prompted by a genuine feeling that all was not well with the newspapers and that the time to look into this question is now, before the trends become more and more exaggerated. One would think from the right hon. Gentleman, who now wants to defend the freedom of the Press and attack the Lord President of the Council and myself for wanting to corrupt the Press, that in the days when his party were in power, all was well.
I draw his attention to paragraph 506 of the Report, where we find the evidence given by Mr. Arthur Mann, who was editor of the "Yorkshire Post" at a time when that newspaper was opposed to the Munich agreement. Mr. Arthur Mann said:
The Government of the day"—
that is, the Conservative Government—
standing for a policy of appeasement, did bring influence to bear on newspaper owners to support their policy.
He went on:
I also think that many members of the Conservative Party interested in big business thought there would be a better chance of business prospering if good relations with Hitler were maintained.
He goes on to say that the Central Conservative Office brought pressure to bear on him to change the policy of the paper to support appeasement and not oppose it. This is the party that believes in the freedom of the Press.
To show that this is not an isolated incident, in paragraph 507 the editor of the "Glasgow Herald," a Conservative newspaper, which was also against appeasement, says that he and a director were invited to go and see a senior member

of the Cabinet, and they were told that the Cabinet disliked the line they were taking. That was in the good old days when there was freedom of the Press from all Government interference.
There is a paragraph in this Report which deals with the Press and local authorities. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of what happened just across the road from this House only a few weeks ago when, unfortunately, the Middlesex County Council changed from Labour to Conservative. The first act of the new Conservative Council in Middlesex was to put a ban on the Press. As a result there were approaches by journalists, by this much-maligned body of which we have heard so much today, the National Union of Journalists, by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Pargiter) and other Members of Parliament in Middlesex. Here I quote from the local newspaper:
After a storm of protest from newspapers throughout the country, Middlesex County Council decided on Wednesday to withdraw the ban it had imposed the month previously.
The ban was one of the first acts of the new Conservative County Council. How can they pretend to believe in the freedom of the Press when all their actions show that they do not believe in the freedom of the Press at all? As I have said before in this House, the only thing they believe in is the freedom of the newspaper proprietors. I say to the right hon. Member for West Bristol that I do not believe that my original speech in the Press Debate has been disproved by the Royal Commission's Report. With most of the things I said, the Commission agrees. I would also remind the right hon. Gentleman that I did not raise the question of advertising. That was raised by others of my hon. Friends.

Mr. Stanley: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the report of his speech, he will see that advertising is in the list to which he referred.

Mr. Haydn Davies: It is in the list at the end. I only quoted it as one of the things I wanted to look into, but I did not elaborate it at all. I said that I believed in the freedom of the Press, and the Commission comes out with the same thing. I said that I did not believe in a nationalised Press, nor does anyone


on this side of the House; and the Commission agrees with us. We are getting on very well. I gave the figures of what I called monopolistic trends. The Commission has confirmed my amateurish attempts to get an assessment of what was happening. They agree with my figures, but they are not quite as bold as I am in analysing the trends. The figures are worth looking at because some day, it may be not in this Parliament, this House of Commons will have to deal with the question of newspaper monopolies.
It is all very well to say it has not been happening recently. After all, we have had ten years of war, or ten years since the war started. We have not had the developments which we had in the '20s and '30s. But the fact remains that the number of Sunday and daily newspapers in this country has fallen from 169 to 128. In other words, there have been 41 deaths, and the only new birth has been the "Daily Worker." It is all very well for hon. Members to smile. I am concerned about the fact that these newspapers can disappear. The hon. Member for Wood Green knows as well as I do of many of the tragedies in Fleet Street when these newspapers are closed down with dramatic suddenness. We are bound to be concerned when we find that these organs of public opinion can be closed down, can disappear, at the whim of a man who, accidentally, possesses wealth—closed down without regard at all to the locality, the needs of the locality or the needs of the community. I was appalled when I saw these figures confirmed by the Royal Commission. From 1921 to 1948 the number of papers dropped from 169 to 128.
Again, I say it is not enough for the Commission to say, "Well, we hope it will not go on." It will go on. On the very day that this Commission's Report was published, it was announced that the "News of the World" had bought 75 per cent. of the shares in Berrow's "Worcester Journal," the oldest newspaper in the country; and that on the very day that this Report came out—a Report which was hoping there would be no further extensions of newspaper ownership. Of course there will be, and that is why I am sorry, personally, that the Commission was so timid in not coming forward and giving a lead as to

how one could deal with these monopolistic tendencies.
A good deal has been said about the fact that the Commission said that the British Press is not inferior to any other in the world. I am disappointed in that reference. When I went to give evidence I was called to account—and I was a witness for the prosecution—because I said in the newsprint Debate that I believed we had the finest Press in the world. Hon. Members will find it in the evidence. At Question 3609 I was asked:
But did not you say recently we had the finest and cleanest Press in the world?
My answer was, "Yes," and I will say it again. I still believe we have the best Press—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And the cleanest?

Mr. Haydn Davies: I said the best and the cleanest. I am talking about the British Press generally, in comparison with the Press of other countries. But the Commission, this great vindication we have heard so much about, refuses to accept my verdict that the British Press is the finest in the world and all they are prepared to say is that it is not inferior to any of the others in the world. That is taken up in great headlines—"the attack that failed," "vindication of the Press," "not inferior to any other in the world"; yet I said, and I am still saying it now, that the Commission is wrong and that we have the best Press in the world. Surely I can be forgiven if I want to make it even better than it is by getting rid of the evils and having it on a proper basis?

Mr. H. Strauss: The hon. Member, referring to the number of newspaper deaths, attributed that to the big chains of newspapers. Is it not fair that he should bring to the attention of the House paragraph 345 of the Report, which draws attention to an effect precisely the opposite—namely, keeping alive papers which otherwise would have died?

Mr. Haydn Davies: If the hon. and learned Member had been listening to me carefully, he would have known that I was lamenting the death of those newspapers but that I did not attribute it to the chains. I am well aware of what is in the Report. I did not mention that at all. If he will look in HANSARD he will find that I did not say the chains were responsible for the deaths of those papers.

Mr. H. Strauss: I thought the hon. Member mentioned monopolies.

Mr. Haydn Davies: I am coming to the monopolies, if the hon. and learned Member will give me a chance. Of the 66 towns in Great Britain which publish daily newspapers, there are 58 where local monopoly exists. In other words, if you want a newspaper with local news you have to take the one provided for you by the Press lords, and you have no option. It is no good anyone saying that the national papers come in as a corrective; they are not a corrective to the dozens of local papers who have a local monopoly. If my friends in South Wales want to know what is happening in South Wales, they are forced to buy the "Western Mail." There is no alternative at all.
I feel that the Commission, having pointed out these dangers and pointed to the 55 towns where there is this local monopoly, and having come to the conclusion that it was dangerous, should have done more than merely suggest the use of the Monopolies Commission to deal with it. I wish they had come out far more strongly and said, "The time has come to call a halt." After all, a pious hope that this kind of thing will not go on in the future is no substitution for action. I said earlier in this House that I felt the time had come to call a halt before it was too late. It is quite obvious from the figures that my ideas were right. The Commission are not prepared to take any action to prevent a possible further deterioration which they themselves say would be catastrophic if it occurred. I should have thought that the way to deal with it would be to get in first, before the position had deteriorated.
I will end by pointing out that the day the Report came out hon. Members opposite were coming up to me and almost saying, "Poor old chap. You have had it. This is a vindication of the Press and your speech was wrong." They have now read the Report and they are not quite as happy about it as they were because, after all, the condemnation in the Report of suppression and distortion is pretty damning. I hope hon. Members will take the trouble to read it. The criticisms of the triviality and sensationalism, particularly apparent in the

national popular newspapers with a mass circulation, do not make very pleasant reading, and I cannot see how anyone can find in this Report a vindication of the Press.
Above all, there are their conclusions. No one has ever said that newspapers should not be political and that the leading articles should not contain the personal views of the proprietor. I would ask first, that the news columns should be truthful and then the views can be given anywhere they like. I feel that this Report has done a very great service. I am glad that the Commission was set up. As the one who started it all, I should like, through the House, to thank the Commission for having done a good job of work. I only wish that they had gone through the full logic of their investigation. I support them 100 per cent. in the proposal for the establishment of a Press Council which, I believe, will do more for the British Press and creative journalism than any other single thing.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: I have listened as I think my hon. Friends have, with admiration for the courage and tenacity of the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies). He has sat in the boat after it has sunk. I think that that is the highest form of patience. However, in endeavouring to follow his mental processes, mine have become somewhat bewildered. He said at the beginning that every line of this Report is a condemnation of the Press.

Mr. Haydn Davies: No.

Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman did.

Mr. Haydn Davies: Every page.

Mr. Baxter: All right then, every page. Well, on one page, for instance, there are these words:
There is no corruption in the British Press.
Is that denunciation?

Mr. Beswick: Which page?

Mr. Baxter: I am not going to be bothered to give the pages. Hon. Members can find these words in the Report. Moreover, I am not going to give way at all.
Then people make much play with the words that the British Press "is inferior to no Press in the World." That, to the hon. Gentleman, is not good enough. Apparently, we have to say it is superior to any in the world. Believe me, if anybody wants to say I am inferior to no other orator, I shall be content. Then there are the words in the Report saying there is "no secret ownership." Yet the hon. Member says every line is a condemnation.
Then he told us some remarkable things. Apparently, a deputation from the Central Office called upon Mr. Mann to tell him that many people believed that we could do better business with Germany under Hitler. If Mr. Mann was worthy of his salt, he should have ordered those gentlemen out of his house. It is utterly incredible that he should have even entered into conversation with them. There is something very strange about all that.

Mr. Blackburn: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me? I ask this question without any desire to be offensive. I should like the hon. Gentleman to say quite clearly whether, if in 1938 he had written the kind of article that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) would have written against Mr. Chamberlain and his peace policy, Lord Beaverbrook would have allowed him to print it?

Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman's irrelevancy is now famous in this House. He has now introduced the relations between editor and proprietor. That has nothing to do with this subject. I am talking of a responsible editor called upon by a deputation from the Central Office to order him or lead him to change his policy. That is an incredible story. No editor on earth would submit to such a thing. He tells a parallel story. I did not think that it was true then. I do not think it is true now.

Mr. Haydn Davies: It is contained in paragraphs 506 and 507 of the Royal Commission's Report.

Mr. Baxter: I am not denying the incident. What I am inquiring is, Why did not Mr. Mann throw them down the stairs or call the police and have them thrown out into Fleet Street? Since when have editors been receiving deputations to

dictate policy? If there is condemnation it is not of the Central Office—that seemed to be unusually active for the Central Office—but of the editor who received the deputation. Mr. Mann, like an Oxford Grouper, chose to bare his soul before the Royal Commission, but I do not see what it has to do with the subject in hand.
The hon. Gentleman said that newspapers had died not because of monopolistic tendencies. I do not know from him what they did die of. At one moment he was denouncing the monopolies because, he said, they had caused deaths. This is a case of a split mind. One of the reasons for the deaths of some papers is that, in the progress of newspaper production, London papers have acquired the ability to print simultaneously in Manchester and Glasgow. We are able—I should say they are able, because I am not in the business now—to put upon the breakfast tables in every part of the country modern, fully prepared newspapers having expensive services and served by foreign correspondents throughout the world. It is not possible for a small local morning newspaper to afford such expensive services. Whatever demand there may be for the local morning newspaper, there is thus bound to be a demand for national morning newspapers. We can no more stop that progress than stop the flood of Niagara Falls. The result is that people now get much better newspapers than they did before.
I am sorry, personally, that those small papers had to die. I love the independent newspaper. There was an American editor who came over to see me—many years ago now—and he owned a newspaper in a small American town. I asked him what was the policy of his newspaper, and he said, "Come again?" I said, "What is the policy of your newspaper?" He said, "What do you mean by 'policy'?" I said, "What do you fight for all the time?" He said, "Hands off McMurtrie Boulevard." I said, "That is a very fine policy. Don't you ever let them touch McMurtrie Boulevard." And he went away happy. I do not tell that story entirely frivolously. That is how newspapers come into being: to fight some cause, small as it may be in some small place.
Now I must get down to my general oration. I want to condense what I have


to say because there are others who want to speak and we want to hear them. It has interested me very much to watch the antics of the hon. Gentlemen most responsible for bringing about this inquiry into the Press. We are used to confusion of thinking on the Benches opposite, but the recent thinking over there about the Press and the Report upon the Press, has at all times been odd—and the attitude of the hon. Members for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), South-West St. Pancras, and Devonport (Mr. Foot). The hon. Member for Devonport was always the worst of these assassins and still carries a dagger and still looks like an assassin. The others are robed in robes of white, of virtue; and they say, "What harm did this do? We brought about this Commission, but look what it has said about the Press. What good we have done it!"
Well, once in a ship at sea the captain got drunk, and the mate, who was making up the log, being an honest man, was about to write in the log, "The captain was drunk today," when another officer said to him, "That will not look very good when it gets to the office. I should change it if I were you." Whereupon the mate wrote in the log, "The captain was sober today." The captain could as soon have been expected to be grateful to the mate as we on this side of the House could be expected to be grateful to the conspirators who have pulled off this unworthy thing.
I should like to discuss my version of how this happened. We have the four Members most concerned with us now. It is, perhaps, only a coincidence that they are all Government supporters and within actual—or, at least, psychic—contact with the Lord President. We shall not put it any higher than that. In their speeches they have tried to prove that, of course, their one purpose was to purify the Press, and to see that it had freedom of opinion and less monopoly. That was what the National Union of Journalists said. There were nothing but men on all sides wanting to improve the Press, and the suggestion that they were in touch with the Lord President was so raw and so malicious. Yet when the deputation came from the National Union of Journalists, by another singular coincidence it was the Lord President who

received them, although he does not yet seem to know the date upon which that happened. I must say, I congratulate the conspirators; it was beautifully co-ordinated. If only the Government had handled the dock strike with as much adroitness, they would have done much better.
So we had the Debate, and the Royal Commission was set up. The more we examine the situation the clearer it becomes that this was a political move to disparage and muzzle the Press. I say that that can be proved by deduction, and the charge must be made. Nevertheless, the Report is a brilliantly compiled document, and has proclaimed the character and the quality of the newspapers and the British Press beyond any further challenge.
The hon. Member for Devonport is an interesting figure in all this. Nobody speaks with more energy, vitality and self-righteousness. He constantly attacks Lord Kemsley for the distortion of news in his papers. Now, the hon. Gentleman himself recently in his paper "Tribune" described the events at a party given by Mr. Edward Hulton the publisher. It was very well done. The hon. Gentleman was trained in the Beaverbrook school, so he knows how to write. He described this event very well. I do not know whether or not he was there, but he got the information. He described how the champagne flowed even more freely than water, how the banquent was sumptuous, how it was an enormous affair.
Then came the sting. Two prominent Members of the Conservative Front Bench were at this Babylon orgy. Did the hon. Gentleman not know that a peculiarly spectacular Member of the Government Front Bench was there also? Was this distortion by omission? Or was it just incompetence as a journalist? It is one or the other. I hope that when he comes to speak he will deal with this particular point of factual objective reporting. As far as the party is concerned, I do not criticise the Minister or the Government any more than myself. I would have gone myself if I had been invited.
When we had the Debate on the setting up of the Royal Commission, I offered, in the course of my speech, to give way


to the hon. Member for Devonport so that he might answer the question whether or or not Beaverbrook, with all his faults, was not the greatest developer of talent in this country, because he made the careers of so many, including both the hon. Gentleman and myself. But so bitter is the hon. Gentleman, so much does bitterness cloud his judgment, that he preferred to remain seated rather than pay that small tribute. I think that was too bad.
I agree with one point that has been made today, that newspapers do not criticise themselves and each other nearly enough. That is a good point. Newspapers, which are the supreme untrammelled critics themselves, have no sufficient form of criticism. I do not like to see fraternisation in Fleet Street, except at the level of the reporters. I should like to see newspapers at war with each other, and one of the things I enjoy is reading the "Daily Mail" and the "Daily Herald" when they start hammering each other. Newspapers are too mealymouthed these days, and I give that point to my opponents. I say it is a good thing that there should be more criticism.
May I for just a moment take the House into the editorial side of a newspaper? Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with newspapers and they make many mistakes, but let me show how this kind of thing happens. A newspaper is created and published at great speed; events do not accommodate themselves to the schedule of editions; as one gets nearer and nearer to edition time, so there is a great strain; judgment has to be swift, and sometimes sheer fatigue will blunt the fine edge of judgment.
I should like to give an example of that. One night on the "Daily Express" many years ago, when we were supporting Lord Beaverbrook's Empire Crusade with great violence and great enthusiasm—because most of us believed he was right, and I still do—I had been on duty for something like 11 hours; it was about half-past 11 at night, when one mechanically goes through the functions of editorship, and suddenly the news editor brought me a story which had been telephoned by our local correspondent in Streatham, or Putney or some such place, to this effect: "Lord Robert Cecil, at a meeting last night at St. Michael's school,

said that the only League of Nations that mattered was the British Empire, that it was the only workable league, and that he wanted to pay this tribute to the British Empire." Well, at that moment of sheer intellectual fatigue, and because it fitted in with our general policy, I decided that Lord Robert Cecil had seen the light, and I splashed the story right across the front page. I then went home very pleased with myself.
I woke up in the morning, the newspapers were brought to me; slumber had restored the façade of my shattered judgment, and the moment I saw the front page I knew that there was not one possible word of truth in it; it could not be true. How could Lord Robert Cecil, having devoted his life to the League of Nations, decide to renounce it in Streatham? Within the hour Lord Robert Cecil was on the 'phone; he was very nice about it; we apologised on the front page, and everybody said, "What a rotten newspaper." That is the kind of thing which sometimes happens, and when we hear this petty point about inaccuracies we must realise it is inevitable that a newspaper, dealing suddenly with the most unexpected of situations, must very often be inaccurate in detail. It is to me an eternal surprise that they are as accurate as they are.

Mr. Blackburn: I am sorry to interrupt again, but as this is the last occasion upon which this matter will be debated, and as the hon. Gentleman is such an authority, I should like to ask him this question. Is it not a fact that it is laid down by the proprietor of a newspaper that a certain policy shall be followed in relation to the reporting of a certain kind of thing, and that in relation to the reporting of all news, the policy laid down by the proprietor of the newspaper is followed?

Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman asks whether a proprietor lays down not only the policy but the very eyes through which the reporters must see events. In the first place, there is far too much stress being laid upon policy. Policy is an isolated thing. Policy is usually political, or, if you like, economic. But to say to a reporter going out "You must see this through our eyes" is not possible. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is possible. If a newspaper is well run and there are discussions between the editor and the


proprietors and the staff, a common point of view will be developed. Just as the crew of a ship at sea develop a happy understanding, so a newspaper becomes a happy ship, and there is a tendency for everyone on the staff to reflect it.
I want to deal with this strange recommendation about a Press Council. The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) made a speech which terrified me. It was a speech of a maiden aunt in a lions' den. He spoke in that soft, seductive, agricultural voice of his and said that many people are now saying they do not believe what is written in the newspapers. I have generally found that people who say that are backwoodsmen in Pall Mall, whose intellectual development stopped with Kipling's "If" and who believe that the Fuzzy-Wuzzies were damn fine gentlemen. What he wants is a de-hydrated British journal such as we had in the General Strike, which was no doubt much admired by hon. Members opposite. What the hon. Member suggests is a horrifying spectacle. He has always been a little remote since we have known him in this House, and obviously he is not in contact with the facts of life.
Newspaper production is a most intensely individualistic thing. Somewhere there is a new Northcliffe, or a new Pullitzer, or a new Beaverbrook, if he is not exported by that time. They will alter the whole face of things. There will be new innovations and dynamic features, but all the time this strange Council will be tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, "We did not like that story you had this morning." It is a most ridiculous suggestion. Suppose a newspaper is losing circulation. Perhaps it has tried to produce a paper which is more intelligent and less strident, but the circulation is falling and the investors' money is in danger. What are they going to do in these circumstances, bearing in mind that the staff is also in danger? Are they to change their policy?
In the end, no matter who holds the shares and who are the directors, a newspaper is in the hands of the readers. It is within their power to ruin a newspaper in one day by not buying it. A newspaper worth millions of pounds can become bankrupt in 24 hours, its only value being its machines and real estate. But here comes this Commission to tell newspapers

where they go wrong, what they should do and what they should leave out. It is not common sense.
The attitude this House should take up is the attitude which should have been taken up two years ago—hands off the British Press. We have heard suggestions about educating journalists, but what about educating Members of Parliament who have to deal with far more subjects than journalists? I believe that Members opposite are with us on this issue. Let the newspapers criticise each other and fight each other, but remember that this is the Fourth Estate and that we have the most honourable Press in the world. We should send out, as a message from this Debate, "Hands off the British Press."

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: I should like to deal briefly with two personal references made by the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter). He accused me, as joint-editor of the "Tribune," of having suppressed essential facts in a story which appeared in our paper two weeks ago. It was a story describing the now famous Hulton party. The hon. Member said that, while saying two prominent Members of the Opposition had been there, we had suppressed the fact that a prominent Member of the Government was also there. The hon. Member's charge is completely untrue. When we wrote the article, which has proved to be accurate, I certainly did not know that a Member of the Government had been present at the meeting. A few days later I received a private letter, which was not a letter sent to the editor for publication, from a prominent person who had been at the meeting, saying that a certain member of the Government had been present. I wrote back and said we were quite willing to publish the letter in the next issue, and if the hon. Member will buy a copy of the "Tribune" of today he will find the letter is there. If every newspaper dealt with questions in that same open fashion the British Press would be very much better.

Mr. Baxter: I withdraw the charge of distortion and leave the charge of journalistic incompetence.

Mr. Foot: I do not think it is incompetence, because no other paper got the news; or perhaps the suppression was


going on in the other newspapers. I do not want to make the hon. Member get up and apologise for all his arguments, because it would take rather a long time.
I will only say this about Lord Beaver-brook. If there is any suggestion that my interruption in the hon. Member's speech on the last occasion showed a churlishness to Lord Beaverbrook, I should like to remove that impression. I have a great personal affection for Lord Beaverbrook, who has done great service to me. I have never made any personal attack on him, but I have made many political attacks, which I intend to continue with increasing momentum as the General Election comes nearer. I have never had any complaint from Lord Beaverbrook. I do not ask for another withdrawal from the hon. Member on that subject.
The hon. Member for Wood Green said that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies) is staying in the boat after it is sinking. That seems a curious charge, because so many Members opposite have been making haste to climb in the boat. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) made a remarkable speech justifying a lot of the evidence the N.U.J. put forward. He spoke of the widespread concern throughout the country about the provincial newspapers and the decline in their number. He seemed to be agreeing with us today, although he voted against the Royal Commission two years ago.
Much the same attitude has been taken up by other Members of the Opposition, and it seems that the only person who is not in favour of the recommendations made by the Commission is the hon. Member for Wood Green. The oftener I hear the hon. Gentleman make a political speech the more I think I was wise when I appointed him dramatic critic of the "Evening Standard." We all enjoyed the dramatic criticisms of the hon. Member for West Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) and others who have spoken in the Debate, but what the hon. Member for Wood Green said did not have much to do with the case. It is rather tedious that we should have the same sort of Debate as that which took place before the Commission was set up.
I want to make a brief reference to the hon. Member for West Cumberland who,

I think, made a dangerous point when he suggested that a Press Council might be set up without laymen being represented on it. I think that suggestion was not merely worse than useless but dangerous. I believe that such a Council without lay members on it so far from providing the consumer with a method of protesting at what has been done by a newspaper, might consolidate the power of the great proprietors and make things more difficult for the really independent newspapers. I hope that no such Council will be set up without lay members being represented upon it.
Now I should like to say something about the speech of the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), who spoke with his usual wit and his usual wisdom—the first part of that sentence is intended as a compliment and the second is not. I am sure we were all touched by his journalistic experiences, and the fact that he had failed to get his articles published in the newspapers. He asked me whether I would write an article about him for the front page of the "Daily Herald." He must have forgotten that I did so some six months ago, when I ransacked his past career for so long to discover favourable aspects that there would not be anything left if I were to try to deal with that subject now. However, if the right hon. Member wants to contribute regularly to the Press, I offer him, here and now, space in the "Tribune." We have been looking for a long time for a new Nathaniel Gubbins with a taste for politics, and we should be glad to have him as a contributor.
The right hon. Gentleman referred at length to some of the things which had been said in our previous Debate on the subject. It has been argued that the Commission has not upheld the charges which were made by several of us in that Debate. But what the Commission has certainly done is to reject altogether the views expressed by many of those who opposed the Commission in the original Debate. There was, for instance, the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) who expressed two opinions in that Debate. First, he said that the use of the word "monopoly" was an abuse, and that there was no suggestion that anything within miles of a prima facie


case had been made out. The right hon. and learned Member particularly referred to the provincial dailies, and on that the Commission are quite clear. They underline the special vulnerability of the provincial papers, state that a further decline in their number would be most undesirable, and they frequently and at length discussed the question of the perils of what they call local monopolies. The right hon. and learned Member, who said the Opposition knew all about this subject, must have learned a considerable amount since he read the Commission's Report.
The most remarkable statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman in that Debate was that Scott's famous dictum about the sacredness of news was not being neglected. He said he refused to believe that news was doctored. If he believed that before the Commission was set up he cannot possibly believe it today, because the whole of their Report completely explodes that point of view. The Commission showed that news is always out of focus, that there is persistent distortion owing to political bias. Therefore, the right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot possibly hold the opinion which he gave the House at that time as one of the reasons why the Commission should not be established.
There is also the case of the hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude), who also gave his reasons why the Commission should not be set up. In the original Debate I said that in America, in the last 20 years, the total number of newspapers had been halved, and that in 10 States there was a monopoly in every town. That remarkable fact gave rise to the appointment of a Commission in America. The hon. and learned Gentleman pooh-poohed all this, and said the matter was of no concern and no interest. Referring to this country he said there might be a tendency towards that sort of thing here, but the question was whether there was any sign of danger.
The Commission's opinion was that it would be dangerous if a further concentration of newspapers took place. Although they have not been able to propose any precise measures for dealing with the problem, they say the danger is such that they hope there will be no

further decline in the number of provincial dailies or chains. It is remarkable that the Commission were appointed and examined the matter at the moment when they concluded that the ideal state of affairs, as to the number of papers which existed, had been reached. The Commission did not condemn what had happened in the past, but said that they did not want to see any more of it. The Commission, it seems, were appointed in the nick of time. If the hon. and learned Member had waited a few more years a few more papers would have been swallowed up, and the Commission could not have reached the same conclusion. If the Commission have done nothing else they have brought some enlightenment to the hon. and learned Member; had it not been for them he would have been as ignorant on this subject today as he was when he rose to make his speech in the original Debate.

Mr. Maude: Would the hon. Member read to the House what I said about United States' papers?

Mr. Foot: I have not the full quotation.

Mr. Maude: I said:
If the United States has had its papers halved what does it matter. The United States has every conceivable kind of paper. If all the 25 journalist members of this House started their own papers, it would be a very difficult thing to have to hunt through them all to see their different views."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428, c. 563.]

Mr. Foot: That is a rather tedious way of substantiating what I have said. The hon. Member said if the number of newspapers in America is halved what does it matter? That is his opinion. But it is not the opinion of a great number of leading lawyers in America and all those concerned with civil liberties, who are very anxious about this matter. A Commission was set up there to examine it, and arrived at some of the conclusions at which our Commission arrived.
Now I want to turn to the most important aspect of this matter—the question of monopoly and monopolistic tendencies—and take as my text, as I did in the original Debate, the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden), who has said:
Our ideal is not the concentration of ownership but spreading it over the widest possible field and the largest number of individuals.


I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman still holds that opinion since the latest issue of the Conservative Party's programme, but it still holds for me and I hope it still holds for Members opposite. It is true the Commission do not speak of a general tendency towards monopoly. They say there is a concentration of ownership. I am not clear myself about the distinction between the two; I think it is something of a quibble. When the Commission say they do not find a general tendency towards monopoly that seems a strange conclusion to reach from the facts which they assembled.
It is for that reason that I described the Report as tepid and unimaginative. Figures have been given by some hon. Gentlemen, but I should like to repeat them. Between 1921 and 1948 the total number of general daily and Sunday newspaper in Great Britain fell by 24.2 per cent.; national morning and London evening papers decreased by 25 per cent.; Sunday papers by 23 per cent.; provincial papers by 39 per cent.; and provincial evening papers by 15.7 per cent. A decline on such a scale in a period of something like 27 years is, indeed, a very big decline. How much bigger would the decline have to be before the Commission would say that there was a monopolistic tendency?
Suppose we had a Commission to examine the number of shopkeepers, and after examining the position the Commission came to the conclusion that during the past 27 years the total number of shopkeepers had declined by anything between 25 and 40 per cent. Surely the people would say that this was a remarkable tendency. But by some aberration—because many of us think the Commission have done a good job in other respects—they cannot detect a tendency towards a monopoly in newspapers in a decline of that scale during this period. The Commission say that this tendency, although they doubt whether it exists, has gone far enough and they hope it will not continue.
They have not proposed any positive action, for the reason, in my view, that they have taken too complacent and wrong a view of the dangers of the situation. They think the tendency towards monopoly has automatically stopped. But this argument is very weak. It is

based on their claim that the tendency for the decline of newspapers was greatest between 1920 and 1929, that it was not as great between 1929 and 1937, and that from 1937 to 1948 to some extent the tendency towards concentration has even been reversed. This seems to me to be an absurd argument, because from 1937 to 1948 there were only two years when there was no newsprint control.
In any case, the process of concentration in any industry does not go in a smooth, even process. Usually great bursts are followed by relaxation and after that another burst. It is just as probable that when newsprint is free and when big newspapers have the opportunity of buying newspapers again or starting new newspapers in the areas where they want to start them, that there will be a repetition of what happened between 1921 and 1929 as a repetition of what happened between 1937 and 1939.
Someone has spoken on this subject with far greater authority than the Royal Commission, and that is Lord Kemsley. I said some hard things in the original Debate about Lord Kemsley, and I think it right now to pay my tribute to the candour with which he gave his evidence before the Commission. It was his evident desire to conceal nothing. Indeed, as I read the evidence it strikingly reminded me of the situation which often occurs in Russian spy and espionage trials. I do not know whether the Commission went to work with drugs and bright lights, but who of us who used our influence for this Commission would have imagined that Lord Kemsley would come forward with such a full and open confession? Yet that is what he did. Not merely did he confirm the charges of distortion which we had made against his newspapers, but he gave vital facts about the concentration of ownership and about the dangers of the general situation, dangers which the Commission have not properly understood.
That is what Lord Kemsley said. I am not quoting him exactly, but this is an accurate assessment of what he said. He said first of all that he was being continually approached to buy new newspapers; second, he had refused to buy them solely on personal grounds; thirdly, the size of his own chain had not reached the optimum point from the economic


point of view; finally, that in any battle between chain newspapers and independent newspapers, the chain newspapers were certain to win. Those are arguments which seem to me to be conclusive. Lord Kemsley confirms the whole case that we put on this issue, and if we in this House spoke with greater moderation than he did before the Commission, it was because we were not as intimately acquainted with the facts as he was.
The only safeguard against chains extending still further—a process which the Commission would deplore—rests with the personal fancy of the chain owner. Great provincial newspapers may fall into economic difficulties. In any battle the chain owners are assured of victory. That is what Lord Kemsley said. What a temptation for anyone less modest than Lord Kemsley. We cannot always be assured, however, that Lord Kemsley will be in charge, or that the self-restraint he always exercises in this matter is going to be exercised. If this cool, cautious Bismarck of Kemsley House is succeeded by a Kaiser Wilhelm, or if this Solomon is succeeded by a David what a calamity could occur.
Therefore, I do not think we should trust solely to the fancy of the chain owner for the prevention of this extension of monopoly, which the Commission deplore as do all those who subscribe to the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington about the desirability of the diffusion of ownership. I, therefore, deplore the fact that the Commission has failed to consider properly remedies for the disease which the Commission itself says may be dangerous, and which Lord Kemsley says is positively chronic.
If the Commission has been mealymouthed about the dangers of monopolies generally, they have certainly proved up to the hilt the case that we put on the undesirability of local monopoly, and of the real perils which exist in this field. If anyone cares to read what I said at the Commission they will see that nine-tenths of the evidence I presented dealt with this aspect of the subject, and the facts they have produced are overwhelming. They have proved that there is a danger of local monopoly, and they have agreed that this is a very serious thing.
Some of the facts have already been given, but they need to be emphasised again and again, because they are dramatic. The newspapers which the Commission thinks are on the whole the most reliable newspapers in the country, and those newspapers which we know are much more reliable in the presentation of news than the national newspapers, are what are known as the provincial dailies. They are more reliable largely because they circulate in a given locality, and the people reading a story can check it up and see for themselves if the facts are true. It is no accident that the Commission said what we said in the original Debate, that on the whole the provincial dailies are the most creditable part of the Press. But these are the very papers which the Commission says are most vulnerable. It should be noted that no new provincial papers were started in the period under review. Sixteen ceased publication, and many were in a serious economic position. It should be noted that in 58 areas out of 66 in which a daily newspaper is published there is a local monopoly in the sense that there is only one local newspaper.
I believe that this is a highly undesirable state of affairs, and when hon. Members opposite attack us because of our motives for starting this campaign, I should like to read to them what has been said by the owner of an independent newspaper, who is at this moment fighting a battle for his own existence. He is not the owner of a Labour paper; he is not a member of the Labour Party but an opponent of it, and he frequently criticises the Labour Party in his paper. He is fighting. The hon. Member for Wood Green said he wanted papers which fought for a cause. I will tell him one—the "Inverness Courier," one of the oldest papers in the country, an independent newspaper fighting for the last five or six years against the menace of the chains. These chains are still using illicit methods of competition.
It is all very well for the hon. Member for Wood Green to get up and piously say that newspapers have abandoned those illicit methods of selling vacuum cleaners and all the rest of it. They have abolished part of it, but they always have stunts such as special holiday camps and suchlike methods which however desirable in themselves, are not the business


of newspapers. They give to newspapers in some areas an advantage over the independent newspaper. Take the case of the "Inverness Courier," which welcomed the setting up of the Commission and said that the only people who would oppose it were those with something to hide. The editor invited the Commission not merely to sit in London but to see what people thought about these things in the provinces. He said: "Come to Inverness, and see what is happening. Come and get the local feeling. See what battles we have had to fight." When a great private interest was proposing to take over the water supplies in the Highland area this independent newspaper fought those interests week after week until they were beaten. How much help did it have from the Kemsley newspaper in Aberdeen? None whatever. It was very tame, silent, muzzled. This is what the editor said:
I do not want to sell the 'Courier.' In particular I do not want to be forced to sell it, and above all things I do not want to be forced to sell it to one of the chain groups, or indeed, to any person, party, or group who is unlikely to carry it on as it has so long been carried on, that is for the benefit of the Highlands and the Highland people, by people who know and love the Highlands and the Highland people. In that I am far from being unique. On the contrary I am but one of many owners of local newspapers, small as well as large, in many parts of the country, whose papers have served their own localities as wholeheartedly, and with as deep a sense of responsibility and pride, as mine has, and who, since the coming of the chain groups, have lived under the shadow of the fear that they might be compelled, sooner or later, to sell out or surrender their independence to one of these groups.
I have not any doubts which side I am on in that battle. It is the danger that independent newspapers who are serving their localities and who have a sense of local pride and who have the knowledge that they can really interpret what is happening in their area, should be squeezed out, rubbed out or muzzled so as to become part of a great chain of newspapers run by people from London. That is the sort of thing which has been happening. The Commission have not really tackled the problem of preventing it from happening.
I have only one word further to say. There is much to be proud of in the journalistic profession, but much is done in the name of journalism which is a disgrace to the newspapers, to the journalists and to the proprietors, as well as a disgrace to the country. In the system of ownership and the tendencies that are

going on there is a danger that may recur as soon as newsprint is available. There is in this system a serious menace to the rights of free expression of and the rights of public controversy in this country. If I believe those things is it a crime to try to fight this menace? Is it a crime to fight this peril, that great owners from London should be able to stretch their control wider and wider across this country of ours and to subdue and subject local pride, local initiative and local power? It is damnable that such a thing can go on. That is the real reason why we started this fight and why we are intending to go on with this fight. The battle will go on. The Report of the Commission does not mark the end. It marks the beginning.

8.26 p.m.

Earl Winterton: I am very fortunate in being called upon to follow the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), for a variety of reasons. One of them is that I am prepared to pay him the tribute of saying that he has made an eloquent speech. Another reason is that he is really the fons et origo of this matter. I am going to show how truly this case has been torn to pieces by the Royal Commission in the evidence which he himself gave before it. A third reason that I am glad to follow the hon. Member is that I have always had that curious form of snobbishness, an admiration for genius. It is an entirely sincere compliment to the hon. Gentleman when I say that he is a genius, but that will not prevent me from making very derogatory remarks about him.
He quite recently paid me a compliment which I am sorry to bring forward now. I am sorry to have to say what the compliment is, in front of my right hon. Friends on these benches. He had a little notice in the "Daily Herald" in which he said that he thought that with all my faults I was the most competent fighter against the Government on this bench. I was so pleased with his observation that I stood myself a champagne dinner. He went on to say, with that truth which always distinguishes his articles, that some of my right hon. Friends sometimes looked rather askance at me when I make some of my remarks about the Government. Hon. Gentlemen will see from all these observations I have made that I am no personal enemy of his, but


I have to say a few words about his attitude and the attitude of his party on this matter. That is why I am very glad that we have this Debate today. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition pointed out that it was high time that it took place.
I have a personal observation to make, which is that I have had for some time a connection with the Kemsley Press. I cannot claim to be as competent a journalist as the hon. Gentleman but I have had a long experience of journalism. When I was at Eton, I was sub-editor to Mr. Gilbert Frankau, and I must say in all frankness that after the fourth issue of the paper, the publication was suppressed by the headmaster on the ground that it smacked of the yellow Press. That was the phrase used by the late Dr. Warre about the paper in question. He held views like those of hon. Gentlemen opposite. He wanted to suppress papers that he did not like. I am sure that the hon. Member for Devonport would like to do the same with the Kemsley Press.
After that rather frivolous opening, I would like to say that seldom in the history of Royal Commissions has the evidence of witnesses been more pulverised by examination before an impartial official body than that of the hon. Members for Devonport, South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies) and Huddersfield (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu). For some reason best known to themselves, these hon. Members, who are respected Members of this House, chose to clothe themselves in their attacks upon the Press in general, and upon certain of the newspaper organisations in particular, with all the garments of innuendo, gossip and prejudice which they could find. These were torn off them by this examination and they were left in their naked unloveliness.
I will quote one or two examples because I think it will be a useful contribution to the Debate to quote some of the evidence given by the hon. Gentlemen. Listening to the speeches we have had from the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies) and the hon. Member for Devonport, one would suppose that the Commission had agreed with what they said and that they had an easy time before it and held their own. I shall make my quotations comparatively

truncated. This is one of the questions put to the hon. Member for Devonport:
You are aware that on the Continent, where there are an enormous number of papers, that does lend itself very much to blackmail and many undesirable things?—Yes. I do not know whether that is due to the multiplicity of papers or due to the general position of their political life. I think there are other factors which may explain it.
Is it not very largely because they cannot make a living honestly and so they have to take dishonest money in various ways?—I do not think that is the sole cause by any means.
That is an expression of opinion: I asked for details?—I have no evidence of detailed cases of misrepresentation with me, but it would be easy to make a full analysis of the papers' treatment of some issue like bread rationing and you would then see where the misrepresentation lies.
Chairman: Have you some case actually in mind where a local independent paper with a larger circulation than an invading chain newspaper, nevertheless succumbed to it?—No.
Yet a great deal of the hon. Gentleman's speech was devoted to explaining how chain newspapers were killing local newspapers.

Mr. Foot: On the subject of bread rationing, I hope that the noble Lord will take notice of the fact that the Commission accepted my suggestion and made an inquiry. As to chain newspapers, the Commission do refer to some cases in which the chains have actually been the immediate cause of the death of independent newspapers. It was because we wanted to discover these facts that we asked for the Royal Commission to go into the job.

Earl Winterton: We are all aware of that. What I am concerned about is the rough passage which the hon. Gentleman had at the hands of the Commission. I could quote many other examples. Here is another—[An HON. MEMBER: "It is cross-examination."] It is not ordinary cross-examination. Cross-examination in a court of law is by a lawyer who is hostile to the case of the other side. This was an examination by members of the Royal Commission who were anxious to arrive at the truth. I have sat on many Committees of this House and Commissions, and when the chairman and the members of an impartial body like that ask the sort of questions they asked the hon. Member for Devonport, they are not very satisfied


with the evidence he has previously given. Here is another quotation:
You said the chain papers carried out in national politics a policy dictated from London, roughly, did you not?—Yes.
And that the same dictation was exercised in regard to local politics and local matters. Is that credible and possible?—I think it is possible.
Is it likely?—I think it is very likely.
Is it likely that a proprietor in London should worry about the gas and water politics of someone in Plymouth?—I think he lays down the line they should follow. I think that applies to local as well as national news.
Throughout the examination of the hon. Gentleman and others who have spoken, in not one single case did they make good their point. No impartial person who read the speeches which have been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) this afternoon, the speeches which were made in the previous Debate, the charges made in the Press by the hon. Gentleman and the charges which were made in this House about Lord Kemsley, and then the Report of the Commission, could say otherwise than what I did, that these hon. Gentlemen were left without a single vestige of evidence to support what they had originally said. I admit that possibly they were not so discredited as witnesses as were one or two other gentlemen outside. I think that the most discredited witness of all, and the most fantastic one, was Mr. Hannen Swaffer; but they came very near it and it was a race as to who was the most discredited witness. I do not really know who came first.
I say in all seriousness to the hon. Member that if he had made, not in this House or before the Commission but where his statements would not be privileged, the kind of charges he has made against Lord Kemsley and against one or two other newspaper proprietors, had they chosen—which they probably would not have done—to bring an action for damages, I think he would have had to pay £10,000.

Mr. Foot: The noble Lord made the same charge on the previous Debate, and I made the reply on the previous Debate that all I had said about Lord Kemsley in the House of Commons I had printed in "Tribune" and, therefore, if Lord Kemsley wants to take action, the courts are open to him.

Earl Winterton: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well—he is not quite as innocent as he appears to be—that a quotation in a newspaper from what he said in this House is not a breach of Privilege.

Mr. Foot: I know it is wrong to interrupt the noble Lord further, but I should make it clear that the statement we printed in "Tribune" was not a report of what had been said in this House. It was an article printed before the Debate in the House of Commons in which I made all the charges that I made in the Debate. In the "Tribune" of two weeks ago—if the noble Lord will do me the courtesy to read it—he will see that the charges I made before the Commission were also published in that paper.

Earl Winterton: I still maintain the point I made—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]—and I say this further to the hon. Gentleman and to those who are so actively supporting him: what had better be withdrawn are the innuendoes made by hon. Gentlemen opposite about the Press which have been proved by the Report of the Commission to be so singularly without foundation. I think nothing of the general honour or the standard of competence of people who so insult their own profession as some hon. Gentlemen opposite have done. I now pass to my next point.

Mr. Follick: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, the noble Lord is continually crossing the red line.

Mr. Crossman: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, the noble Lord has made a serious charge against my hon. Friend, namely, that he said things under Privilege which he has not been prepared to state in writing in tile Press. My hon. Friend has denied that. The noble Lord refuses to withdraw. Is it not grossly discourteous?

Earl Winterton: That is a fair point and I certainly accept it. If the hon. Gentleman says that he has said outside, where it is not privileged, everything he has said here, of course I accept it. It would be wrong to do otherwise. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for calling attention to it. I will now get on with my speech. I think nothing of any hon. Gentleman belonging to any honourable profession who so insults that


profession as so many hon. Gentlemen opposite have insulted the general profession of journalism. They have brought every sort of charge against it. One of the benefits of this Royal Commission has been to prove how true those statements are.
I placed a voluntary time-table upon myself and I only want to say in conclusion that in my opinion we have in this country, in the Press and the legislature—that is to say, in Parliament and the Press—the two finest institutions of their kind anywhere in the world. As one who is an amateur journalist and a senior Member of this House, I stand proudly here to say that. The two are complementary to each other and nothing could be worse for either this House or for the Press than that they should fall out. They have done so occasionally in the past and it has not been to the advantage of either. Of course, it is true that each fails occasionally adequately to perform the great task which they have in common as the twin guardians of liberty and democracy, but in general they reach a higher standard than any other Parliament and Press in the world.
I go further than that and say that in this House, as in the newspapers, there is a decency of reticence in certain matters which is unknown in the Press and in the legislatures of any other country. I remember an example of that in the case of an old-time Member of this House, a certain Mr. Lynch, who was an Irish Nationalist Member. Mr. Lynch had fought against this country in the South African War and had been in prison for it because he was a British subject. He was returned as an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament. He often took part in those violent Debates. Nobody ever reminded him of his past, because it would have been contrary to the traditions of this House to do so. Equally, things are kept out of the Press; certain cases of scandal affecting certain people, which, if reported, might produce imitators in other directions, are kept out of the Press.
We have in this country a decency in the legislature and in the Press which is known in very few other places, and it is a great pity that any impression of the opposite should get across. I say, therefore,

that it ill becomes any Member of this House to bring the sort of charges that hon. and, to a great extent, right hon. Gentlemen opposite have brought against the Press; and I am very pleased to think that as a result of the report of the Royal Commission the critics of the Press, in this House and out of it, have had a crushing defeat.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. S. N. Evans: The report of the Royal Commission must be the most magnificently successful thing of its kind, because it has satisfied not only the Press, who feel themselves fully vindicated, but satisfied also those of my hon. Friends who may be thought to have played some part in bringing about the Inquiry. I must declare my interest. For nine years I have been chairman of the "Birmingham Town Crier," that well-known 90-year-old provincial organ. Although my knowledge of the profession is somewhat amateur in comparison with that of my professional colleagues, I do know a little about the business.
I have listened with considerable interest to the talk about monopoly. No one could fail to be sympathetic to the small journal in Inverness, which we have been told is fighting for its life against a giant competitor. No one could fail to be moved by the story of the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot). But I think that in this matter we have to be somewhat objective. Is it better that a newspaper should go bankrupt and that the district should be denied the service of a newspaper, or it is better that a chain should take it over? That is a problem which does occur occasionally, and in this matter we must be fair.
I did not support the demand for the setting up of a Royal Commission on the Press. I thought that some of the innuendoes which were flying about were rather hysterical and unfounded, and that any remedies which might be proposed for the supposed diseases from which the Press was said to be suffering could only be worse than the disease. But I think now that I was mistaken and that, in the light of the report, I ought to have supported the demand for a Royal Commission to be set up, because there can be no doubt that the report is of a most reassuring character.
I want to talk about the complaint that the Press does not show objectivity. This is a matter in which we have to be realists. Just as political parties are the instruments of certain forces within the State, so are newspapers. Nobody buys the "Daily Telegraph" expecting to see the leader critical of Tory policy and eulogistic of the policy of the present Government—of course not. Nobody expects objectivity from the "Daily Worker." The "Daily Worker" would gladly reduce the living standards of the people of this country to a coolie standard if they thought that would help holy Russia. Is the "Daily Herald" objective? Of course it is not objective. No one expects the "Daily Herald" to take a point of view hostile to the Government and favourable to the Tory Party. Let us be honest and realist in this matter.
In my own paper, the "Birmingham Town Crier," we print full reports of the proceedings of the Birmingham City Council. I say quite frankly that if we did not give a considerable amount of space to our own local Labour councillors they would think we were "barmy." Of course we always report the proceedings in the best possible light from the point of view of the Labour Party. The Tories do it and I think it is a healthy thing that these partisan matters should be put forward vigorously by partisans. It is the essence of our social democracy and if we ever tried to set up a body charged with the task of seeing that Lord Beaver-brook and the chairman of the "Birmingham Town Crier" presented events in a severely impartial manner, it would make Little Lord Fauntleroys of us both. That would be a very bad thing.
Having established that in my view it is a good thing that the frontiers between the newspapers should be defined and are defined and that, generally speaking, people get from a newspaper what they expect to get, I turn to the Press Council. I am not against a Press Council; I think it might be a good thing. I have flirted with the idea that a smaller body, perhaps consisting of myself, representing the citizenry, the chairman of the "Birmingham Town Crier" representing the Press, and the hon. Member for Wednesbury, representing Parliament, might be better.
It may not be a bad thing that a Press Council should be set up but this move must emanate from within the industry and, contrary to the view of my hon.

Friends the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), and others who have spoken, I am dead against lay members. I am dead against lay members because I think the effect of 20 per cent. lay members would be to sanctify already existing privilege at the same time as it created divided responsibility. Unless the Press can be induced to set up this body voluntarily and to give it full support, we had better leave it alone. I certainly think it would be a bad thing for the Government to start tampering with it, because it is not only necessary that there should be freedom of the Press, but also very necessary that there should appear to be freedom of the Press.
As people think there is no smoke without fire, I think it better that there should be a continued risk of distortion and suppression than that the first steps towards regimentation should be suspected. I do not think these five-and-twenty office boys all in a row, devoid of any statutory powers—and I am not in favour of giving them statutory powers—would have any influence at all on the present proprietors of the Press. I have always been against elaborate and expensive facades. It is a bad mistake to make meaningless gestures, and unless this proposed Press Council is armed with teeth by those at present responsible for the conduct of the Press that is what it would be—a meaningless facade concealing the reality beneath.
A body of this kind will not have much influence on the political content of newspapers but it could do a lot in the matter of the ethical standards now being observed by a section of the Press, especially the Sunday Press. Parts of our Sunday Press are a disgrace. I have a girl who is still at school and she takes the "Pictorial." The recent "Sunday Pictorial" articles are real "stinkers." Who went to bed with whom and how many times, is no sort of Sunday morning breakfast reading for young girls and boys. The Press should be sufficiently big to discipline itself in a matter of this kind and put an end to the printing of this pernicious nonsense. The Press Council might well do something useful in that line.
Two years ago I was in South America and I had a chat with various editors there. I shall never forget what the editor


of the most prominent Bogota newspaper said to me when I walked out and we shook hands. He said, "My friend, we are the 'Manchester Guardian' of Latin America." The whole of the Press must seek to make itself worthy to achieve and deserve such high praise.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. Cooper-Key: In declaring my interest as a director of Associated Newspapers, I do not claim to possess the experience which so many hon. Members have of the industry. During this Parliament, however, there has been so much abuse of certain newspapers and their publishers that I am very glad indeed to have an opportunity of saying a few words in this Debate. The Press is one of the institutions of this country, and I believe that it is healthy that the institutions of the country should from time to time come under public examination.
Two years ago, when the proposal was made to set up this Commission, I voted against it. I did so for two reasons. First, I knew that the accusations and wild remarks made about the Press were inaccurate and without foundation. Secondly, I realised that the Motion originated entirely from political motives and not from any concern in regard to the standards of the Press or the interests of the public. One of the duties of newspapers is to criticise the Government. In return all Governments claim that that criticism is inaccurate and prejudiced. But this Government are trying to put over a revolution with not even a majority of the electorate behind them and they are bound to receive harsh treatment in the expression of public opinion.
I should like to join with those who have congratulated the Commission on their work. The Report is impartial, well written, and above all readable. But only a few thousand people will buy the 6s. book, and far fewer will have the time or interest to study the 4 lb. volume of evidence. It is clear that both accusers and accused can derive some justification for their case amongst this vast mass of material. However, the public is assured that their Press is not corrupt; no sinister or hidden financial interest controls it; there is no dangerous monopoly. The Commission finds that those responsible

for producing their newspapers are confirmed in their public responsibility, and the British Press is inferior to none. We all know that there are instances of distortion, omission and suppression. But this is inherent in the partisan spirit in which we conduct our democracy. It is also inevitable that when newspapers are small and more news has to be put into the wastepaper basket, or spiked, than goes into the paper, there must be many inaccuracies.
But upon what standard of truth, impartiality and accuracy is the Press to be judged? By the speeches of the Minister of Health, or those of the learned Attorney-General? By the evidence given by the mover and seconder of the Motion two years ago? By the election addresses of Members of Parliament? Really, in the last four years more words have been eaten by Ministers on the Government Front Bench than in any other similar period in history. With those standards and criteria it is not for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to accuse the Press of failure in their public duty, still less of prostitution.
In point of fact the Commission repeated and emphasised, but did not find the solution to the eternal dilemma which faces editors and Members of Parliament alike; the moral problem of feeding a comparatively simple public with what it wants, and at the same time keeping faith with true values, the values of truth, decency and justice. It is true that some newspapers give the public everything it wants and enjoy enormous sales and circulations. Others show some discrimination; but all in all, the Press of the country carries out its duty in a free enterprise society in offering the public a wide freedom of choice in newspapers.
I wish to say one or two things about the recommendations of the Commission. The Commission was, in fact, instructed to make recommendations, and it did so. But a speech by Sir George Waters after the Commission had made its Report needs, I consider, remarking upon. He thought that "through the Council the Press of the nation could speak with one voice." He urged that the freedom of the Press would thus be better safeguarded. I submit this is a very dangerous interpretation of the Council.


The very independence and strength of the Press lies in the fact that even on matters of national and international importance, it never speaks with one voice.
One might inquire what is in the mind of Sir George Waters? What will be this voice? Will it say who shall write for newspapers and who shall not; who shall buy newspapers, and sell them, or start them? Will it issue directions and evoke sanctions? Will it answer the telephone? Could one get on the telephone and speak to it, and ask it out to lunch, and fix some little detail that is going wrong with the Government of the day? I think that those whose task it is to examine the proposal should be extremely circumspect in interpreting the Council as a potential voice of the Press.
The Press has a special duty in regard to two modern problems. First, the relationship of this House to the nation. There is a tendency to pervert the old meaning of "democracy" at the present time; to pervert it to mean Government by and for the best organised pressure groups. Secondly, in regard to the relationship of the State with the individual, there is the duty to protect minority interests and to safeguard the individual from the insolence and greed of the State, and for this it is vital that we should have not only a free Press but a powerful one.
I now come to the suggestion contained in the Report, in paragraphs 601, 602 and 603, regarding the supply of newsprint. Here is an opportunity for the Government to take their part in carrying out the recommendations contained in the Commission's Report. We cannot possibly have a successful and a prosperous provincial Press unless more paper is made available at really low and competitive prices, and I hope that whoever replies for the Government will give us information about what the Government's intentions are on that matter.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Driberg: As he very properly declared at the beginning of his speech, the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Cooper-Key) has a financial interest in newspapers, and he therefore naturally spoke as he did. We thought he did it very nicely, but I need not dwell long on his speech because the readers of certain

newspapers tomorrow will certainly have a fuller opportunity of studying it than they will have of studying the speeches of some hon. Friends of mine on this side of the House.
Because it consists of two words of one syllable, the phrase "hands off" is always good for the headlines in the popular Press, and, therefore, the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter), whose intervention was one of the first that really livened up what had hitherto been a rather tepid Debate, has earned himself his corner of the headlines. I do not think that there was much in his speech besides headline material. He indulged in the often-reiterated fallacy that the solution of these abuses and problems of the Press is perfectly simple: the readers can, after all, stop buying the newspapers. It is one of those utterly unrealistic truisms like the famous one about the Ritz Hotel being open to rich and poor alike.
Incidentally, my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans), I thought, devoted some of his time to attacking a dummy—a target that had not really been put up at all. He ridiculed those who demanded complete objectivity and impartiality in the Press. I do not think anybody has ever demanded that, any more than those on this side of the House have ever alleged that the Press of this country was corrupt, or widely corrupt. Of course the Press cannot be impartial or objective, especially not in its editorials and leading articles; what we do complain of is that an excessive amount of bias and tendentious reporting creeps into news reports which purport to be factual. That is not in the least a party political accusation. That applies to newspapers of the Left and of the Right alike.
I say here once more to hon. Members opposite that the fact that this proposal, this campaign, was initiated by a number of hon. Members who are Socialists and sit on this side of the House is not evidence that it is a partisan political campaign, as has been alleged. It is merely due to the accident that, as Mr. E. J. Robertson, the general manager of the Express Newspapers, said in evidence to the Royal Commission:
Most journalists are Labour—all the best ones, anyway.


If an absolutely impartial spectator had been listening to our Debate today, I think he would have observed a certain selectivity in the quotations from the Royal Commission's Report that have been offered by speakers from both sides of the House. In fact, the Report seems to be one of those classic ambiguous documents, like the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, in which Catholics and Puritans alike could find the doctrine that seemed pleasing to them. Opposition speakers have welcomed the supposed "vindication" of the Press generally which the Report provides. Speakers on this side of the House have quoted some of the many hard things said in the Report about the Press.
In parentheses, I would observe that it is particularly noticeable that, whereas the Commission in general maintained an extraordinarily bland and Epicurean god-like aloofness in considering these appalling indiscretions, abuses and libels, when they themselves were stung by that news-story in the "Observer" they at once became very much less bland and more severe in their attitude.
Then hon. Gentlemen opposite have pointed with glee to the Report's finding that chain ownership had not yet become a menace; whereas we on this side of the House have been able, with equal satisfaction, to point out that the Commission consider that it would be deplorable if the chains were any further extended; so that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) indicated, it is really just as well that we had the Royal Commission set up at this stage—"in the nick of time," to use his phrase.
There was also some reference to the Report's vindication of the independence of editors, whereas what the Commission really said was merely that "a new kind of paper" had grown up requiring "a new kind of editor," which is exactly, in much more polite and genteel language, what we had said about some of the editors of some of the popular newspapers. I do not think that anybody could have read without complete conviction and delight those passages in the evidence given by Lord Kemsley and Lord Beaverbrook touching on this subject. There was Lord Kemsley's picture of the conference of experts who are to provide the background policy for the

unfortunate London and local editors who cannot be expected to "grapple" with this kind of thing. Poor old Delane and Scott—always grappling! Then there is Lord Beaverbrook's wonderful reply to the Commission when they asked him what happened at his free-for-all editorial conferences if one of his editors disagreed with him about some aspect of policy. He replied grimly: "I talked them out of it."

Mr. Bracken: The hon. Gentleman owes a lot to him.

Mr. Driberg: Certainly, a great deal—and I never hesitate to pay tribute to him personally, as the right hon. Gentleman knows well, especially if he remembers my observations in the previous Debate.
To my mind, we have been absolutely justified in the proposal we made by the general tenor of the Report. Whatever partial vindication it may have offered on some of the matters which we criticised, the condition of the Press is in fact found by this high-powered and not Left-wing Commission to be such that, in the view of the Commission, the serious step has to be taken of setting up a Press Council to keep an eye on the Press and to try, if possible, to improve it. I was glad to hear that the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) on the whole seemed to endorse that proposal.
I particularly appreciated and agreed with the serious closing passage of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. It was, as it were, a welsh rarebit after a meal which seemed, like so many of the right hon. Gentleman's speeches, to consist too exclusively of raspberry Melba. He spoke of the triviality and sensationalism of the Press. That is true, but I am inclined to think that that aspect of it will be rather more difficult for the Press Council to deal with than merely factual distortions. Questions of taste are obviously extremely difficult for such a body to deal with.
I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman's reference to Mr. Baldwin's Act which prohibited the reporting of evidence in divorce cases. He said that on the whole it had been a useful or a successful reform. I would venture to point out that it has been to some extent nullified, because it is only the evidence the reporting of which was forbidden and newspapers are still


allowed to report fully the judge's summing-up, which necessarily often quotes details of evidence which might have been thought harmful by those who originally propose this reform. To some extent, therefore, it has not been quite so useful a reform as it has been thought to be.
The right hon. Gentleman dealt with this difficult question of what the public wants, and to what extent the Press is bound to give the public what it wants. I would point, in contrast with the Press, to the B.B.C. The B.B.C.'s policy, from its earliest days under Lord Reith, has always been not to give the public precisely what it wants, or is thought to want, but to give it something slightly better than it thinks it wants. The result of that policy has been, as I think is generally agreed in one respect at any rate, a tremendous improvement over the last 20 or 30 years in the musical taste and appreciation of the people. It is perfectly true that the B.B.C. is a monopoly; but I think it is largely because the B.B.C. is non-commercial, rather than because it is a monopoly, that it has been able to adopt this policy. One of the difficulties and dangers of commercial competition is that it does seem to drive newspapers to pander to the lower kinds of taste. One of the saddest passages in the Commission's proceedings was in the evidence given by the chairman of the "News of the World," who said that the number of serious political articles published in that newspaper had been deliberately cut down because they had "seen so many circulations suffer by an undue proportion of serious political articles being contained in small papers."
The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) started by saying that the Report had blown sky-high some of our allegations; but he then went on himself to confirm from his own experience many of the allegations we had made. I was glad to hear him pay a sincere tribute to the Government for their absolute impartiality in the distribution of advertisements in the newspapers, and for never attempting, as we believe many advertisers have in the past, to exercise as advertisers any unfair pressure on editorial policy. Those of us who say that there is advertising influence on editorial policy have always qualified that by pointing out that that was truer prewar than when newspapers are small

owing to the rationing of newsprint. That danger may be expected to revive if newsprint becomes more readily available.
In my view the Report has various deficiencies. I must skate hurriedly over them, because I have promised to end within the next few minutes, but one of its chief deficiencies seems to me to be the somewhat uncritical acceptance by the Commission of comfortable assurances from some of their witnesses. They seemed a little more inclined to believe, as it were, the witnesses for the defence rather than the witnesses for the prosecution, the employer rather than the employee. That is probably congenital in such a Commission.
Almost every Member who has spoken has quoted the Report's remark that the Press of this country is "inferior to none in the world." That is, incidentally, one of the statements for which, so far as I could ascertain, the Commission took no evidence at all. It may be true—I hope it is—but it is, of course, typical of that kind of insular complacency in us in this country which so infuriates foreigners. It may be true; but I would point out, in regard to one very important aspect of news, that the "New York Herald-Tribune's" coverage of international news is so outstandingly superior to that of most English newspapers that thousands of serious students in this country have to subscribe to its European edition to keep themselves properly informed.
That brings me to one of the gravest defects in the Commission's proceedings—that they shirked the responsibility of investigating the Press at the very point at which the misleading of the public can be most dangerous and most difficult for the public to detect—that is to say, in the region of foreign affairs and international news. They said they had had no research done in this subject because of the "difficulty of ascertaining the facts of a given situation." In my view, the most serious example of Government influence on editorial policy—which everybody says does not exist, and how terrible it would be if it did, and for which the newspapers are as much to blame as the Government—is the uncritical acceptance by most editors and diplomatic correspondents of Foreign Office handouts. The Report condemned the "Daily Worker" on this point, but


every other paper is equally guilty of tendentious reporting of foreign news.
I apologise for running over my time a little. I end by saying—and I would have liked to say much more—that the Report is good as far as it goes, and as good as could be expected. I think it most regrettable that Mr. J. B. Priestley felt obliged to leave the Commission in its early stages. I do not think that he, for instance, would have let my friend Mr. Frank Owen get away with it so easily, on those questions about the "White List," as the simpler members of the Commission did. It is obviously desirable that the Press Council should be voluntary. The experience of a somewhat similar body in New South Wales, however, is that it may not be very effective unless it is statutory. If the Press shows itself disinclined to set up a body voluntarily, with lay representation, then we shall have to press the Government to consider the matter further on the lines indicated by my right hon. Friend the Lord President this afternoon.
The Press does not, of course, operate in a vacuum. In a society whose values are largely base or shoddy, the Press will be base and shoddy also. I hope most earnestly that the setting up of this Council may contribute something to the re-establishment of the true freedom of the Press and the establishment, for the first time in our society, of some truer values.

9.20 p.m.

Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: May I first of all offer to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) a small consolation for the two more plaintive of his grievances? In the first place, he mentioned that my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Cooper-Key) might have more space for his speech in a certain organ of the Press. I would remind the hon. Member of paragraph 437 of the Report, which shows that during a month when a count was taken of the "Daily Herald," the proportion was 74 per cent. Labour and 23 per cent. Conservative. So there is a smaller chance of any space being found for my remarks. The other point about which the hon. Member gnashed his teeth was the withdrawal of Mr. Priestley from the Commission. I would remind the hon. Member by way of

consolation that before he withdrew Mr. Priestley gave us a non-judicial condemnation of a case, of which he had not heard half, and when the hon. Gentleman puts that against his absence, he will remember that Mr. Priestley would have been at the disadvantage of having heard all the evidence before making his utterances.
The hon. Member for Maldon and his three colleagues have received a great set-back in this Report. I want to deal in a short space of time with points which have been referred to in this Debate. I want to make this my first point. When the hon. Member for South-West Sit. Pancras (Mr. Haydn Davies) originally brought this matter before the House nearly three years ago, the gravamen of his complaint was the structure of the Press and the management which resulted from it. The hon. Gentleman put it in a very clear sentence when he said:
Can we or can we not have real freedom of the Press in a system of combines and chain newspapers?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1946; Vol. 428; c. 455.]
That was a matter which was stressed in advance in the terms of reference, and on which the attack has sustained substantial and heavy defeat.
Anyone who takes a general view of our discussion today cannot say other than that the main weight of our discussion has shifted from financial arrangements and managements to performance. Once we have got to performance, as the Lord President of the Council said in quoting from Sir George Waters, we get to the human factor, which involves not only those who finance and manage the newspapers but those who write and those who read. It depends on the effect which both reader and writer have on the contents of the Press. Therefore, it is remarkable and we must bear it in mind, that when hon. Gentlemen ask for an inquiry and stress the need for it, emphasising the management and financial background, it must also lead to an examination of performance and the failure of the human factor in that regard.
I shall deal with the points which the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) put as being matters which he had established and were contrary to what I had said on the last occasion. With regard to the concentration of ownership, I noticed that he omitted the point made by the Commission that chains have preserved


newspapers and have even run them at a loss in order to keep them going. He ignored that point in his selection of facts. Everyone has ignored it. None of the hon. Gentlemen who put forward the charge, not the Lord President of the Council who put it forward in clear terms in the previous Debate, dealt with it. There has been no repetition of the allegation that central control of chain newspapers has had a bad effect. That is very remarkable. I do not want to get down to the special points. I will try to look at the Debate as a whole, but that was one of the major points put last time.
The right hon. Gentleman said that policy and editorials were imposed, and that direction from London was bad. All that has been disproved by the Commission. The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) shakes his head. May I give him the run of the thing on that point? It is:
We do not think that the tendency to uniformity among the members of a chain is as great as has been suggested. The critics overlooked the wide differences between the five principal chains, and … attributed to chains as such the shortcomings which they believed they detected there. In fact, however, chain ownership does not necessarily produce uniformity or even similarity in the papers. … We were impressed by the importance which the chains attached to maintaining the local tradition of their papers and by the degree of practical independence, particularly in local affairs, which the chain editors … appeared to enjoy.

Mr. Driberg: May I interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Gentleman went on and cut off some of my time. He must not hold it against me if I do not give way to him. I usually do give way. On that point it is not a question of merely making a selection but of taking the whole run of the report, which disproves all the criticism which the hon. Gentleman made. May I remind him, in order to be fair, that the Commission dealt with the point that during the period of the war, when there was a shortage of contributors in certain subjects, there was some syndicating of articles to the provinces? Apart from that, the Commission give a clear deliverance on that point.
The second point which was made was with regard to the question of local monopoly. Again, I am sure that the

hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have to take these points shortly although I should like to develop them more fully. I do not want to occupy time unnecessarily. Again, I put the point to him whether the Commission were saying that there was danger in local monopoly. The Commission make their view clear that all local monopolies encounter the competition of national dailies; that all but 20 encounter the competition of one or more provincial dailies which operate in the same area but not in the same towns; that.24 compete with independent weeklies, and that in that way we have always to take the position as subject to the competition which exists.
Hon. Gentlemen will appreciate that this is not a question, such as we discussed under the Monopolies Act, of limiting production by restrictive practices or the like. The mischief complained of here is whether the limitation of public discussion of local affairs exists or whether a particular proprietor provides his views to the exclusion of others. Although the matter is said to be one on which the proposed council might keep an eye, it is subject to these two things, first of all, the existing competition, and secondly, the statement in the report that there was nothing approaching monopoly in the Press as a whole or, with the single exception of a London financial daily, in any class of newspaper or in the classes of periodical which the Commission had examined.
I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if he considers these different but cognate portions of the report, he must agree that although they use the term "local monopoly," according to a dictionary they have invented for themselves and which is convenient, to say that this is a Report asserting that there is local monopoly in any ordinary sense of that term is simply avoiding the actualities of the Report.

Mr. Haydn Davies: What about the 58 towns in which the Commission reports that there is an absolute local monopoly?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have dealt with those, and I gave the numbers of the towns where they had to face the forms of competition of which I have spoken. The hon. Gentleman will find


that I am right. However, we shall not bicker at this moment as to who has interpreted it aright.
The other point with which I want to deal is the suggestion of the hon. Member for Devonport that I was wrong and that practically everyone but himself and his friends were wrong on the question of accuracy and distortion. Let us see first of all what the complaint is. It is best put according to the general view of the Commission in paragraph 553, where they say:
We found some evidence of willingness to be satisfied at what at best corresponds only roughly to the truth and of readiness to make statements on inadequate evidence.
That fairly expresses the approach. There are two points. I do not want to take time on one of them because hon. Gentleman are so much more familiar with it than I am, and that is the nature of a newspaper and the problems of the time for getting it out, apart from the current problem of the shortage of newsprint, which means that there must be suppression by compression at present.
I merely leave these points, but I ask the hon. Member for Devonport, the hon. Member for Maldon, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) and their friend, Mr. Percy Cudlipp of the "Daily Herald," just to take the examples which are quoted in paragraph 646 as to these hon. Gentlemen's statements on particular subjects within their own experience to the Commission. With regard to the hon. Member for Devonport and the hon. Member for Maldon, I take the question of the black list.
The hon. Member for Devonport selected Paul Robeson, Clare Luce, the Emperor Haile Selassie and Sir Thomas Beecham. The last two had brought two libel actions against the paper which naturally makes them rather dubious about reference. The first was mentioned 26 times during the hon. Gentleman's period and the last, as I understand it, 12 times under the name of Clare Luce and 86 times under the name of Clare Boothe Luce. The hon. Member for Maldon was even more unlucky if one tried to be numerical. His instances were Gilbert Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and the

late Lord Baldwin. Mr. Gilbert Chesterton had been mentioned 69 times, Mr. Belloc nine times but the late Lord Baldwin had no mention in 3,719 column inches in the "Express" as opposed to 414 in "The News Chronicle." If that is the best the hon. Gentleman for Maldon can do in the way of alleged exclusion, then he had better go and get his ideas of evidence adjusted.

Mr. Driberg: rose—

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: They are all in the Report. Mr. Percy Cudlipp was almost equally unsuccessful. He chose Michael Arlen and Lord Elibank. To Michael Arlen there were 150 references and to Lord Elibank 105 references. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) has begun to look a little angry. Let me remind him of what happened to Mr. Francis Williams, who drew attention to the fact that the film critic of "The Daily Herald" was supposed to have pulled his punches because of offence to advertisers, and "The Daily Herald" film critic came forward and gave the most emphatic evidence that it had never happened and showed his criticisms, which proved that fact.
If three hon. Members of this House and the editor of the paper of the Party opposite, when they are marshalling their facts in order to indict those they dislike, cannot obtain greater proof than that, and when they begin to talk, with hands piously held up in horror, about journalists acting on inaccurate information, I say, search your hearts for hypocrisy before pursuing that course.
The same remarks could be made and the same case deployed on the question of political bias, but hon. Gentlemen opposite have pursued that point already. Of course it is easy for anyone to slip into the attitude, as Doctor Johnson put it, that he did not like to see the Whig dogs have the best of it. That is bound to influence anyone's mind. I ask that we all, and everyone in the Press, do their best, while keeping that robust outlook, to try to give some idea of what the Whig dog is thinking if they do not give all his words.
I should like to reinforce what my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) said on the other aspect of the matter, that of sensationalism, in the course of a speech which I


hope he will allow an old friend to say was one of the most brilliant he has made in this House. That aspect is one which we have also to consider, because, as my right hon. Friend said, there we come right up against the joint problem of reader and writer which is so difficult to solve. I would add my voice to his: I ask the Press, recognising the difficulty of these points, to find a way off their own bat, on their own volition, for dealing with the difficulties which have been pointed out; and I am sure that they will win not only the respect, but the affection of their readers in the country as a whole if they pursue that path.

9.40 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) for keeping to the arrangement that we made about time as far as the end of his speech was concerned; and I regret that I had no control over the beginning of it. He and I both felt that the opening speeches, of necessity, had been somewhat long and that we would endeavour to ensure that the back benchers had as much time as we could possibly give them in order that as many speeches as possible should be made.
The problem of the relationship between this House and the Press, of course, is a very old one. Some of our predecessors of a hundred years ago are probably turning over in their graves at the attitude adopted by both sides of the House tonight towards the Press, for the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) said that the Liberals had never interfered with the Press; but, at any rate, the Whigs prosecuted William Cobbett. Of course, William Cobbett managed to get, as usual, into trouble from both sides, but whereas the Tories did manage to get a verdict of "Guilty" and inflicted a fine of £1,000, the jury disagreed when the Whigs prosecuted him.
This problem of the relationship of the Press to authority in the country—in the world, in fact—has been one of the great problems of the last 350 years. We are marking a very considerable step forward today in the attitude that has been adopted on both sides with regard to the desirability of non-interference with the Press and the recognition that the

Press is entitled to a point of view and is entitled to express it polemically. There is no controversy between either side of the House on that, but the recognition of that right calls from the Press for a recognition of responsibility in the discharge of that right. That was why I welcomed, if I may be allowed to say so, the closing passages of the speech of the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) and the closing sentence or two of the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby, for if that be the fundamental of the relationship between the Press and the public, and the Press and authority, it is a very good thing that it should be understood in the country at large that on that issue there is a unanimity of opinion in the House that should carry very considerable weight.
I agree with what was said by the hon. Member for North Cumberland about the sceptical attitude of the public towards factual reports in the Press. I think that people are very sceptical indeed sometimes about the facts, and that if somebody says that he read what he is asserting in particular organs of the Press it is apt, at any rate in plebeian circles, to excite some derision.

Earl Winterton: Oh.

Mr. Ede: I am not dealing now with statements in this House, but with statements in the Press. [Interruption.] Oh, yes, there is also a healthy scepticism, which I rejoice to see, in regard to all pronouncements which are made pontifically, especially those which have no other claim to credence than the seniority of the utterer.
There have been some matters that are still controversial, but I cannot help thinking that the authors of this report will feel somewhat reassured in the morning when they find how both sides say that they have managed to prove their case. It is true that some of them think that the jury have added recommendations to mercy, quite unnecessarily, with regard to their opponents, but I think there is a general recognition that this Commission has honestly tried to examine a very difficult subject and to produce a report that shall be of help to the country and of guidance to that great institution, the Press. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) said, exceedingly lucky that we did arrange for


the appointment of this Commission at the exact moment that chain ownership had reached the limits of what is desirable, for it is quite clear that if it was really as good as some hon. Members opposite have tried to make out, there would have been no reason to suggest placing a limitation now on the growth of this tendency.
Of course, the classic plea for the liberty of the Press was that addressed to this House just over 300 years ago and I want to analyse the present position and the case put today on the basis of the claim that was then made.
Give me the liberty."—
said Milton,—
to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Now the Press rightly claims the right to utterance and to argument freely according to conscience. There have been suggestions that we ought perhaps to inquire as to whose conscience it should be, but that is the claim of the Press and, as far as we are concerned, we concede it, but Milton was particularly careful in the choice of the order in which he put his liberties, and the first liberty was the liberty to know. That is the liberty of the subject which he can best get through a Press which discharges its true liberties conscientiously. The right to knowledge in this community is now very largely in the control of the Press.
I do not complain that they do not report me, for I do not have to think up a second speech. Those of my right hon. Friends who get about half a column regularly every Sunday morning, of course, have to think up a fresh speech for the next week-end. But, I will say that I have never had any complaint about what the Press have done with my speeches when they have reported them. In fact, I congratulate them on sometimes making sense out of somewhat confusing utterances. I think that on the whole the reporting is good and we recognise that at the moment selectivity has to be maintained because of the shortage of newsprint. But what the public has the right to get from the Press is that it shall be quite clear in the newspaper how much of a report is fact and how much is the opinion of the paper concerned. There are passages in the Appendices of this Report which indicate that on occasion

the Press have not enabled their readers to know as accurately as they could have allowed them to know exactly what are the true facts.
Let us not be unduly condemnatory. The Press have been living through a very difficult time, but it is essential, if this country is to be a really enlightened democracy, that the facts should be available and that the facts and the opinions—opinions which the Press have a perfect right to express—shall be so separated that the reader, the ordinary wayfaring man who reads as he runs, may know when he is reading fact and when he is reading opinion.
I very much doubt whether in these days people read leading articles as much as they used to do. I know that in my boyhood days my father subscribed to the "Daily Telegraph" and the "Daily News." He believed in the "Daily News" but he thought that the leading article in the "Daily Telegraph" was a good thing from which I should learn to read. I am quite certain that in those days opinions were read and editors had a very great part to play in the forming of public opinion in this country. I doubt whether there are now more than three or four papers, in England at any rate, which really influence people's opinions through their leading articles in the way that most of the papers of those days were able to influence people's opinions. I would not complain if great journalists, honestly applying themselves to their profession, could again get for the editor of the paper the position he then occupied, for it is desirable that there should be in this country the skilled advocates of all varieties of honest opinions, and it is the crowning infamy of the dictators that that was what they destroyed.
Let us realise that modern popular education with all its limitations, is a great deal more vulnerable to mass appeal than any previous generation in this country. Let me just quote a couple of sentences from the work of Milton from which I have previously quoted. He said:
And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; whoever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

Mr. Bracken: Is the Lord President of the Council there? Oh, yes.

Mr. Ede: That is the basis of the whole of my right hon. Friend's political thought. If the right hon. Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken) only knew of some checking off I had some few days ago on this very issue, his appreciation of my right hon. Friend would rise to the most tremendous heights. Dictatorship did destroy the opportunity of truth getting into the field.

Mr. Bracken: Yes, hear hear. Antony paid for it.

Mr. Ede: I would remind the right hon. Member that I did make an arrangement with the right hon. Gentleman and I do not want to break it. Dictatorship destroyed that, and it would be the most fatal thing if the same thing happened in this country. But I agree very thoroughly with the right hon. Member for West Bristol in thinking that we have to look first to our educational system to provide us with the bulwark against distortion, triviality and sensationalism. I am not at all sure sometimes that the last two, in the way they divert public attention from great issues, are not enemies that we ought to place quite as high as dictatorship when it comes to the management of a free country like this.
May I give a personal example? The House will recollect that I was sitting on this Bench one day last year when news was brought that my wife had passed away. I went straight home. I had not been in the house five minutes before one daily newspaper had a representative there to ask if I had any statement to make. I would not have believed that any other human being would have thought that an intrusion at such a time would stand up to any standard of decency. And we all know that from time to time that kind of thing is done. That is the kind of thing which tends to bring the Press into disrepute.
One great recommendation of this Report which has excited controversy in the House is the question of a Press Council. I hope that the Press will feel it is in their own interests that they should take such steps of their own initiative as will enable a reasonable standard of conduct to be set and maintained, not with any statutory sanction behind it, but with a recognition that they hold the great responsibility of allowing

what is still the greatest democracy in the world to have the knowledge that will enable it to conduct the affairs of its own nation and take its part in the affairs of the world in a way that will be based on knowledge and a feeling that the facts placed before it can be relied upon.
I think that is the great lesson to be learned from the work of this Commission. Whether in the course of history some people will feel that allegations made were proved or not proved, I think is small compared with that. The Debate today has shown that this House has no desire to interfere with a responsible Press in this country, but we ask the Press to realise that we and they together have the great task of seeing that this people is adequately informed, so that it can discharge the great duty that falls upon it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That this House, having taken into consideration the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press (Cmd. 7700) would welcome all possible action on the part of the Press to give effect to the Commission's conclusions and recommendations.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

Lords Amendment in lieu of one of their Amendments to which the Commons disagreed, considered.

Clause 2.—(EXTENSION OF AREA WITHIN WHICH THE BOARD'S ACTIVITIES MAY BE CARRIED ON.)

The Lords do not insist on their Amendment at page 2, line 23, to which the Commons have disagreed, but propose the following Amendment to the Bill in lieu thereof—

In page 2, line 23, at end insert:
Provided that the Board shall not carry on any activities outside Great Britain except under an authority in that behalf conferred by order of the Minister.
(2) The power conferred by this section on the Minister shall be exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be laid before Parliament after being made.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment"—[Mr. Robens.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: I do hope we shall be given some statement. The Minister ought to give us some explanation, because he must have seen that in another place the spokesman for the Government gave an assurance, and we should like it to be repeated in this House. It is very difficult to follow exactly what happens, because in another place the Lord Chancellor, a member of the Cabinet, makes promises which are repudiated by the Minister of Fuel and Power who is not a member of the Cabinet, and the position is really baffling and bewildering. We want to have a clear statement about where the Government stand. The spokesman for the Government in another place yesterday made some attacks by name on Members of this House. I am not going to follow his bad example, for it would be out of Order, but I ask for a clear statement now. Does the Lord Chancellor, who is a member of the Cabinet, or does the Minister of Fuel and Power who is not a member of the Cabinet, speak for the Government in this matter? We really must thresh this thing out.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Robens): On the matter before the House now I can make a statement which, I hope, will meet the situation. The House is well aware that a Debate took place on the overseas activities of the National Coal Board, and the House is aware also of discussions that took place in another place. We have agreed now with the Amendment submitted by another place, which means that if the National Coal Board desire to carry on activities overseas they must first have the authority of the Minister of Fuel and Power, and that that authority will be by Statutory Instrument, which must be laid before this House. That is the position now, and that is the situation in which I move that we agree to the Amendment that has now come from another place.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think the House is entitled to rather a fuller explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary of the change of attitude on the part of the Government. The House will recollect that when the previous Lords Amendment was discussed on 12th July, the Minister made it quite

clear that he regarded it as highly undesirable that any official action for which the Minister could be held responsible should be necessary in the case of an extension overseas of the activities of the National Coal Board. The House will recollect that a substantial Debate took place on that issue, and that the right hon. Gentleman told the House that it was most undesirable that any such action should be taken.
His particular point, as I understood it, was that if such action were taken it would tend in the eyes of foreign countries to identify the National Coat Board with the Government. One would appreciate that no one would want to be identified with this particular Government, but the point was taken very strongly that it would be very embarrassing for the National Coal Board in its activities overseas to be so identified. Now we have tonight the Parliamentary Secretary coming down to the House and moving to agree with a Lords Amendment under which the activities of the National Coal Board in any foreign country can only be undertaken under the authority of a Statutory Instrument made by the Minister.
I am very glad the Government have, to some extent, seen reason in this matter, but surely the House is entitled to be told why it is that the Government have changed their minds. The Government, in my view, have changed their minds in the right direction, but when we have had a quite lengthy Debate only a fortnight ago, in which wholly contrary views were urged by the Government, one wants to know why they have changed their minds.
Is it that they have at last seen that the views of this side of the House, urged on the Report stage and in the Committee stage, and which appeared to have no effect upon the Government, are right? Is it that they have at long last been converted when the same arguments have been uttered, not by Members of this House, but by noble Lords in another place? Is that so? Or is it that the Government now found it, for some reason of their own, convenient to agree with the views of another place, but still retain their own views on the merits? I think we are entitled to be told, because this is an immensely serious matter.


Rightly or wrongly, it affects the activities of the National Coal Board all over the world, and on such an important matter, when the Government change their minds, the least they can do is to tell the House of Commons why.

Mr. Charles Williams: I congratulate the Government on having changed their minds on this occasion. I do not assume that it is some sudden accession of sense to the Government; but I am assuming that, having heard the Opposition put forward their arguments the other night, they have realised the serious dangers which might face any Government which embarked on a large extension of trade abroad without the consent of the House.
I would point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) that the Government have often changed their minds during the course of this Parliament, sometimes for one reason and sometimes for another. I remember very well the Debate the other day, and it was quite obvious that on that occasion the Minister was not acting in a commonsense way. Even his hon. Friends looked unhappy, and I am sure that what has happened is that there has been a threat exercised on the Government, although not from these benches and not from the Government back benches. The Chief Patronage Secretary went to the Government and said that they would be quite mad if they did not exercise this power and accept this Amendment. Judging from his expression, I believe that the Chief Patronage Secretary agrees with me. In the circumstances, I am very glad that the Government have changed their minds and that we can now have this Amendment. Again we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the other place for having taken out of the Bill one of the more imbecile passages.

Colonel Clarke: As one who for a long time pressed the acceptance of the substance of this Amendment, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will, with the leave of the House, give a little more explanation. This has been running on now since January or February, and I hope this evening will see the end of it. I am sure my hon. Friend would not object to his speaking again, and I hope that he

will put in clearer and fuller form what he has already said, which was by no means clear to me.

Mr. David Griffiths: I am sorry that the Government have decided to accept this Amendment. I am sure the Opposition are rejoicing at this display of weakness. I cannot accept that this is a legitimate claim, because I see this Amendment as a definite obstacle to the Coal Board in its future possibilities of activities in competing with hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Robens: With the leave of the House. I should like to say just this. Almost throughout the passage of the Bill the Opposition have been violently opposed to the National Coal Board having any activities overseas. Subsequently in debate they changed their mind a little and said that they would agree to the National Coal Board exercising their functions abroad, provided that on each occasion they came to this House and asked for the permission of the House. Broadly, that was the position. This is something rather different, but it represents the happy spirit of compromise we find in this House and in British politics generally. I can assure my hon Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. D. Griffiths) that it in no way prevents the Coal Board from taking part in overseas activity. What it means is that the National Coal Board will require a statutory order from the Minister before they will be allowed to do so. The House will be informed of the order, and it will not be for it to decide whether it is made or not.

Mr. Bracken: Wait and see.

Mr. Robens: No, it is not an order that can be prayed against. This is not weakness on the part of the Government. It represents a compromise of the views expressed. It in no way affects the right of the Coal Board to function abroad, but, as I have said, they must first get authority from the Minister.

Mr. Bracken: May I, by leave of the House, thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his statement and congratulate the Government, who have skinned alive the gas stockholders, on taking some interest in the people who have to deal with coal?

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — MARRIED WOMEN (MAINTENANCE) BILL

Lords Amendments considered.

New Clause.—(PROVISIONS AS TO SEPARATION AGREEMENTS.)

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 22, at end insert new Clause "A":
(1) In determining for the purposes of section four of the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, whether a husband has been guilty of wilful neglect to provide reasonable maintenance for his wife or her infant children, payments made by the husband shall not be deemed to be sufficient to provide such reasonable maintenance by reason only that they are made in accordance with an agreement made between the husband and the wife before the commencement of this Act.
(2) Where an order under paragraph (c) of section five of the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, or under section one of the Married Women (Maintenance) Act, 1920, is made in pursuance of an application under section four of the first-mentioned Act, and the husband is liable, in pursuance of any agreement, whether made before or after the commencement of this Act, to make payments to or for the benefit of the wife or any child for whose maintenance provision is made by the order, the liability of the husband under the agreement shall be treated as discharged to the extent of any payments made in pursuance of the order.

Mr. Monslow: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Mr. Champion: I beg to second the Motion.

10.12 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: I rise to oppose this Clause. I have learned to my cost and have suffered from the doctrine that in connection with Private Member's Bills, no controversial proposals involving fundamental changes of the law should be dealt with in this way. This Clause is ill-digested and ill-considered. It received only the most perfunctory consideration when it was dealt with in another place. I gather, from what was said in the course of the discussions in another place, that this Clause has been drawn up in co-operation with the promoters of the Bill and the Home Office. The effect of it is to throw into the melting pot every voluntary agreement entered into by husband and wife, which, in effect, become mere scraps of paper.
This Clause introduces a novel and revolutionary principle, that a bonded deed entered into by two parties shall

at the discretion of only one of the parties be set aside on application to a court of summary jurisdiction. I am prepared to admit that this problem which is caused by the effect of voluntary agreements upon subsequent matrimonial proceedings is a difficult and serious one. Although, as far as I can judge, the Home Office and the Government have no views on the matter at all, it does in my view add another anomaly to the sorry mess in which the matrimonial laws of this country have become inextricably involved. It is well-known that the magistrates court, on application of either party, may alter or discharge any order, or may on such application from time to time increase or diminish the amount of any weekly payments ordered to be made. So long ago as 1912, the Royal Commission on Divorce considered this problem. They made this recommendation, which I shall quote verbatim from paragraph 453 (3).
In order to meet the new conditions the High Court should have the power on the application of either party, if in the opinion of the court it was reasonable in the circumstances to do so, to set aside any deed or agreement for separation on such terms as it may think fit.
The words to which I invite the House to give its attention are these: "… on the application of either party. …"
I should have no objection to this new revolutionary Clause if either party had the right to ask the court of summary jurisdiction to set aside the voluntary agreement that had been entered into by both the parties concerned. What this Clause does is quite different from that. It gives to the wife, and only to the wife, the power to go to a magistrate's court for the purpose of setting aside the voluntary agreement into which she entered with her husband. I am bound to say that in view of the attitude of the Government, which has rejected the idea of a Royal Commission to go into all the anomalies that are inherent in the present position, I should like to put on record my strong objection to this piecemeal and indeed molecular approach to a very serious problem.
10.15 p.m.
As a matter of fact, the magistrates' courts have nothing like the same machinery at their disposal to investigate and verify the means of the parties concerned as has the High Court. In the discussion in another place, the Lord Chancellor,


presumably speaking on behalf of the Government, made it quite clear that the Government had no definite views on the matter, and reiterated on three occasions that a serious point is involved in this particular Clause. If such a Clause is carried, no legal adviser in the country, I imagine, would find it possible to advise any man to enter voluntarily into a deed of separation where the amount involved was £5 a week or less, because there would be no finality or stability about the arrangement which had been voluntarily entered into by both parties. The effect of this Clause would be to deter husbands and wives from entering into voluntary agreements. It would force them against their will in many cases to go to court and have matrimonial disputes settled by the court with all the undesirable consequences arising therefrom.
As is well-known, in these matrimonial proceedings one party has to be proved guilty and the other one innocent, even if the real facts of the case show that it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. It has been said that marriage makes two people one. The question which arises is "which one," and I must say that this particular Clause cannot honestly be recommended to the House. It has been popped into the Bill at the last minute after inadequate consideration in another place and with no consideration at all in this House. I am strongly of opinion that it will create more confusion, more hardship and more injustice than at present exists. Unless the Government have changed their mind and are now prepared to come out openly in favour of this Clause and press the House to do so, I would ask the House to reject this very fundamental and controversial addition to the law which the promoters are seeking to introduce.

Mr. Mitchison: I, too, hope that this Clause will not be accepted. It received very short consideration in another place. I do not know what the arguments for it are in its present form. My objections to it are threefold, and as it is getting late I propose to state them quite shortly and leave it at that. The first is that it is wrong that agreements voluntarily made should be kept on being set aside at the instance of one party and not of the other. It may be there are more cases on one side

or the other, I do not know, and I doubt if there are any statistics about it. It depends so much on which point of view the magistrates look at, and I feel that the only safe course in those circumstances if such agreements are to be set aside at all—and no doubt there may be a case for setting aside sometimes—is for this to be done after proper consideration of all the circumstances.
My second objection—and I am bound to say it is the one that weights most with me—is that no existing voluntary agreement would now be regarded as safe. If this Clause is limited to agreements made before the Act comes into force, it seems to me a retrograde step to take up an attitude which is likely to discourage them being made in future. I feel strongly that the more questions of separation and maintenance can be decided by agreement, the better for us as a community in the long run. I humbly suggest that on that sort of ground as on many others, we still have something to learn from our neighbours in Scandinavia, who extended the scope of the agreement in these cases beyond what we in this country have so far ventured.
My third point is that I am profoundly uneasy if contracts are to be set aside, because that would really come to mean that the courts of summary jurisdiction would have to deal with those cases. I notice that the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the subject was that this should be done in the High Court. I can see objection to that. Equally, I can see objection to their being set aside in other courts. It is very easy to find cases in which agreements have lead to some sort of hardship or injustice, but if agreements have some value, it is important that they should be made wherever possible in the knowledge that they will not be interfered with. If this Clause is put through, it will open up a large number of agreements which were made in good faith in the assurance that they would not be interfered with. It will do so, moreover, at the instance of one party only.
I agree that in this and other matters the law with regard to husband and wife in this country badly needs a thorough examination, but that examination cannot be given on this single Clause, which introduces an exceedingly sweeping change which will affect other matters.


It is a Clause upon which the Government, in another place, deliberately and carefully expressed no opinion and contented themselves with pointing out in most emphatic terms that it was a serious matter. I think that the other place has been rather hasty. I hope that we shall not be.

Mr. Asterley Jones: I listened most carefully to the arguments, and I agree entirely that it is a very serious matter to introduce legislation enabling a court to override and interfere with agreements freely arrived at between the parties. That is admitted, but I believe that the reasons for the Clause are overwhelming. I ask the House to recollect that the principal object of the Bill is to bring up the maximum payment which the magistrates can order from £2 to £5, the £2 having been fixed in 1895. In the past, wives have entered into agreements with their husbands to accept £2 or possibly £2 10s. per week, in the knowledge that if they went to the court they could not get any more. Therefore, that fact has been the compelling reason for accepting the particular agreement.
Very early in the course of this Bill, this fact was represented to us very strongly by correspondents from various parts of the country who pointed out what they had done. They knew they could not get any more by going to the court so they did what wise people do and settled their differences outside. They point out how unfair it will be if people who went to court will now be in the position to go back to the magistrates and ask for an increase, while those who made agreements cannot do so. That argument appeared to those responsible for promoting the Bill overwhelming, in suggesting that we should allow the court to look at the matter as a whole and not merely at the agreement.
It has been suggested that in future no one will enter into agreements in those circumstances, but I would draw attention to the fact that the Clause applies only to agreements made before the passing of the Bill. It brings existing agreements into the melting-pot because they were reached in conditions different from those which will prevail after the Bill is passed.
Another argument used, in the somewhat elegant language of my hon. Friend, was that this Amendment had been popped into the Bill at the last moment. That is not so. In Committee I moved a Clause which had the same object, but it did not meet with the approval of the Committee and the promoters gave an undertaking to the Committee which in general expressed the view that something on these lines was needed. This is the result. I believe it is a good proposal and one which will avoid injustice.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Why was it not put down on Report stage.

Mr. Asterley Jones: It was not put down then because the Report stage was reached before the promoters, in conjunction with the Parliamentary draftsman and the Home Office, had been able to secure a watertight Clause.

Mr. Mitchison: Did the Clause put forward in Committee and apparently rejected by the Committee, give any rights to husbands or only to wives?

Mr. Asterley Jones: The Clause moved in Committee, so far as I remember, enabled either party to appeal to the court to vary the order. Personally, I thought the original Clause had certain merits, but, on the other hand, certain arguments were used against it which induced me to withdraw it.

Mr. Paget: Surely on a Private Member's Bill it is highly unsatisfactory to introduce in another place a highly controversial Amendment, particularly when that Amendment had been proved to be controversial in Committee. We did not get it on Report stage. It was suddenly inserted in another place, and I think we should be extremely grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) for having brought this to the attention of the House. I think it is an extremely bad Amendment.

Mr. Asterley Jones: If the hon. and learned Member will refer to the proceedings in Committee, I think he will find that it was not controversial in principle. It was merely the form in which the Clause was moved that caused controversy.

Mr. Paget: Surely that is what I was saying. It is controversial in the sense that it is extremely difficult to draft anything which does not make manifest injustice, and that is exactly what has happened here. This new Clause covers every voluntary agreement that is made. It does not merely cover cases where a husband has been cruel or unfaithful; it covers also all people who come to a mutual agreement that they will be happier apart and have come to that agreement, perhaps at the request of the wife. The husband makes his own arrangements, designs his own way of life upon the basis of the agreement and the liabilities which he has undertaken under that agreement, and then he is brought before a court and charged with wilful failure to maintain his wife. He replies, "Well, I came to an agreement with her. I have paid every penny of it and on the right days." None the less, under this Bill he is to be condemned. To me it seems to be a scandalous injustice.
I hope very much that the Government, even at this late stage, having heard this argument, will feel that it is time for them to have a view on it. With regard to Private Members' Bills, the Government have a responsibility to this House and to the country. This sort of ill-considered Measure ought not to be allowed to just stray on to the Statute Book, and that is what is going to happen here. I am glad to see the Attorney-General here. I hope that now that this matter has been to some degree debated, we will not upset in this casual way a series of agreements which may have been standing for 20 years—agreements come to on the basis that people would be happier living apart—upset all the arrangements and the income calculated upon those arrangements. Really, we ought not to deal with a question of this breadth at this time of the night on a Private Member's Bill, on a Clause which has not been seen in Committee or on Report, but which strays in at the last moment.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I am not prepared to support the strong language with which the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has condemned this new Clause introduced in another place. I can well appreciate that this Clause was conceived with the highest possible motives of attempting to remove certain causes of hardship

where the parties had entered into an agreement in the knowledge that the maximum amount which a court of summary jurisdiction could award was £2 a week. I think their Lordships are entitled to have the fullest credit for the motives which inspired the new Clause; but on balance, I am bound to say that I think it would be unfortunate if this House agreed to this Amendment.
One of the difficulties in all these matrimonial cases is to remove one set of hardships without creating another set of hardships. Having heard the explanation given by the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Asterley Jones), I think it is unfortunate that this particular problem was not brought before this House on the Report stage. I think that one of the evils of this Clause, as it stands at present, is the fact that it is one-sided and unilateral, that it merely gives the wife power to ask the court to tear up an agreement, and gives no similar power to the husband. That, I think, is objectionable in itself.
This is quite different in terms from the Clause as considered by a Committee of this House, and withdrawn with a view, as the hon. Member for Hitchin has told us, to consultation between the promoters of the Bill and the Home Office. It is significant that when this Bill was considered in another place, their Lordships were told that the Home Office had no particular view about it. The Government gave no specific guidance to the other place, one way or another. Therefore, I think this House must consider the matter on its merits.
I regard this as a very valuable Bill as it stands. I would be very loath that we should do anything to jeopardise its passage into law. For a long time I have considered it high time that courts of summary jurisdiction should be able to award to wives who were entitled to complain of a matrimonial offence a higher award of maintenance than £2 a week. I think that we are all in agreement with the main principles of this Bill; but the departure which is introduced by this Amendment is this. The Bill, as it stood before it left this House, entitled a wife who had ground for complaint of a matrimonial offence to an increased award up to £5 a week. Those were cases in which wives had a grievance. But this Amendment deals, not


exclusively, but at any rate in part, with a totally different class of case. It deals with cases in which there has been no matrimonial offence committed but in which, for good or bad reasons, for fault on one side or the other, or perhaps for fault on both sides, the parties have agreed to separate and have entered into an agreement whereby each can go his, or her, own way, and the husband has agreed to make an allowance to his wife, which may be £2 a week, or less, or more; an agreement entered into recently, or many years ago, on the basis of which the parties have made their arrangements.
I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) that it would introduce an entirely new and undesirable feature to our legislation by a rather casual measure, if we sought to tear up these agreements by saying that the wife could complain that her husband was guilty of wilful neglect, notwithstanding that he had honourably observed a separation agreement freely entered into. For these reasons, and because, by agreeing with the Lords' Amendment, we might create more hardship than we should remove, I hope the promoters of the Bill will not press us to accept the Amendment.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Younger): It is not correct that, as has been said tonight, the Home Office, in another place, did not take any strong line in this matter. At the same time, I think I should make it clear that if we had thought it raised such serious matters as have been spoken of tonight, we should not have allowed it to have gone forward without some sort of protest. But we did not believe that, in the form in which it is on the Order Paper, it did raise this very important issue.
It has been said by several hon. Members that such a matter should not have been so casually introduced by way of a Private Member's Bill. So far as the word "casual" is concerned, I do not think it is quite fair. The matter was raised in substance, and on the merits, in Committee upstairs and there has been plenty of opportunity for any hon. Member following the course of this Bill through the House to show some interest in this matter earlier, rather than to

leave expression of that interest until this moment.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: No time.

Mr. Younger: If there is any charge of an element of casualness, I suggest that it is on the side of those who are intervening now, because there has been plenty of notice that this point would be brought forward. It was made clear during the Committee stage that a different form of the same proposition would be put forward at a later date. There was ample notice for those following the Bill, and only those who have not followed it until now can have cause to make complaint.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I would remind the Under-Secretary that the Bill was only considered in another place on Thursday last.

Mr. Younger: I do not think that that is a very short time. When the Bill was previously in this House, it was said that the Committee as a whole had accepted the principle, and that it was only a matter of finding a more suitable draft.

Mr. Mitchison: Will the Under-Secretary tell the House what opportunity there was for those of us who did not serve on the Committee to raise this particular point on a single Clause before?

Mr. Younger: I say nothing about anybody's right to raise it now, but those who have given no notice to the promoters of the Bill, the Government, or anybody else, should not say that the matter is introduced casually. There is nothing casual about the way in which this finds its way on to the Order Paper tonight, and although not specifically backing it, my right hon. Friend made it clear that some such form would be put forward.
10.45 p.m.
Perhaps I may explain why it was necessary to re-draft this proposition and not accept it in the form in which it was put down in Committee of this House. The reason was that we had felt in the Home Office that, in the form in which it was put forward in Committee it did raise some of the objections about interfering with private contracts properly and freely arrived at. It was re-drafted in a way which we thought very largely got round this difficulty, and avoided precisely the


criticisms made tonight. I do not think anybody would dispute that in many of the voluntary agreements entered into in the past, whether a short time ago or in many cases many years ago, the sum which was agreed was very largely influenced by the maximum figure of £2, which both parties knew was all that could be obtained, if the matter was taken to the magistrate's court. That is the merit of the thing.
That was inevitably the background of all these agreements which were entered into. [An HON. MEMBER: "All?"] It was the background against which all agreements were made. That was the background which may not have been the deciding reason, but the legal background against which all agreements were in fact made. It may have more or less weighed in particular cases. I do not think that can be disputed. That was in fact the law. The reason, as the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Asterley Jones) said, this Bill was introduced and the figure of £2 was raised to £5, was precisely because it was considered that nowadays a reasonable maintenance was not represented by the figure of £2, and that £5 was more reasonable. All we sought to do—and I say "we" because it is no secret that the Parliamentary draftsmen assisted the promoters of this Bill—is simply to limit the variation which may be made in these old agreements to what is necessitated by the change in the law made in another part of the Bill. We are only saying when an application now comes before the courts in the new circumstances, it should not be what it otherwise would in effect be, a bar to the wife claiming that an agreement was in existence based on the old figure. That is all we have sought.
It has been objected that is not reciprocal and does not apply to applications of both parties, but I do not see how that could arise because the only change in the law which justifies this consequential change is a change in the upward figure available to the wife which is not a change in the law which could in any circumstances lead a husband to wish to vary the agreement. We have sought to draft this in such a way that the former voluntary agreement, if it is to be altered at all, should be altered only so far as an alteration may be justified by the change of the maximum figure from £2 to £5. I should not have thought

that was really a very serious interference with the normal law.
In fact, I think it may be true to say, even at the moment, it is not an absolute bar, but there are decisions of courts to the effect if an agreement is in existence, that is strong prima facie evidence that the husband is providing reasonable maintenance. That is not really a reasonable proposition in the light of the change we have now made.
The House has in effect said it does not consider £2 reasonable maintenance and that is why it has raised the figure. Therefore, it is reasonable we should say that, at the discretion of the court, the term "reasonable maintenance" can only be defined in the light of the new Clause of this Bill and that the court is not precluded from doing so merely by the fact the old agreement made against quite different background has, in fact, been kept. I think that is as far as I should go. In another place we were prepared to say that the Home Office took no very special stand in the matter, but I think that if the Home Office thought that the great objections of principle raised by my hon. Friends had any validity, they would not have been taking even that degree of neutral attitude.
We certainly view this as a very useful Bill. The purpose of this Clause was agreed on all sides of the Committee, and I think it was not seriously disputed by anybody in another place. I ask those hon. Members who at this late stage have suggested that it ought to be dropped to think very carefully whether they have not used most exaggerated language about the legal principles which they say we are infringing, and to weigh very carefully on the other side the undoubted reality of the situation to which I have called attention, namely, that these old agreements were made against the background of the £2 maximum, and that, therefore, there is in equity a very good case for making a provision whereby the existence of these agreements should not be a bar to a wife obtaining what we now consider more reasonable maintenance at the new rate.

Mr. Mitchison: I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish to mislead the House in any way. Am I not right in saying that the attitude of the Home Office in another place was that they did not attempt to give any guidance and


that they simply wanted the Lord Chancellor to point out the serious nature of this Clause?

Mr. Monslow: I am not unmindful of the spirit of collaboration and co-operation which the sponsors of the Bill have met up to this stage. I have duly noted the diversity of opinion and comment which has been expressed, and for that reason I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Does the Motion refer only to this Clause?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): It refers to the whole Bill, but the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Monslow) has already spoken, and it will therefore be necessary for some other hon. Member to move the Motion.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

Mr. Frederick Willey: I beg to second the Motion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate to be resumed upon Tuesday, 18th October.

Orders of the Day — NAYLAND SANATORIUM

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

10.54 p.m.

Commander Pursey: My object in balloting for the Adjournment tonight is to expose to the Minister of Health, the Press and the public, particularly those who support the annual £1 million Poppy Day appeal, one of the worst British Legion "rackets," and what I trust is the worst tuberculosis hospital scandal in Britain, namely, the Ex-British Legion Women's T.B. Sanatorium at Nayland, Suffolk, not far from Colchester.
I am fortified in doing so by letters from both patients and visitors, British Legion documents and also my own personal observations. Moreover, as the result of Questions which I put to the Minister a fortnight ago, three patients have written to the local paper, the

"Essex County Standard," Colchester, defending the sanatorium but corroborating practically all the points made in the Questions.
The whole story, which I cannot relate fully tonight, is reminiscent of the worst times of Sarah Gamp as described by Charles Dickens. Yet since the three questions were published in the Press, the National Executive Council of the British Legion have decided to hold a private drumhead court martial which, today, I am informed is to be held in Church House, Westminster, the scene of the Lynskey Tribunal into the Sydney Stanley case, on Wednesday, 17th August, for the purpose of considering my position under their charter. The clause referred to states
The National Council shall have power to suspend for a period, or expel, any member whom in their opinion, after proper inquiry, they shall consider to have acted disloyally or dishonourably towards the Legion.
This, I submit, is an attempt by a political organisation closely associated with and practically dominated by active Tory Party members, with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale (Sir Ian Fraser) as the "stooge" president, a position he ought never to have accepted, to muzzle an hon. Member of this House in his public duties in this House and in the country.

Sir Ian Fraser: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman allow me?

Commander Pursey: I am not going to give way to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. We have had experience before when he has made "three minute speeches" extending more than 15 minutes and he knows there is a time limit. I beg him to wait because he does not know what is coming to him.
This type of Star Chamber, in camera inquiry, has previously been used to squeeze out smaller critics of this vast octopus battening on the ex-Service men. I shall demand the right to a full public inquiry to expose the shoddy workings of Nayland Sanatorium and other Legion charitable "rackets" to the full light of day and public condemnation.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. and gallant Gentleman must indicate where Government responsibility lies in this. The question can of course


only be raised at all if there is to be Government responsibility.

Commander Pursey: I appreciate that, and I submit that the sanatorium I am dealing with is an ex-British Legion sanatorium, still known as the British Legion Sanatorium, on which the Minister of Health accepted three questions a fortnight ago and answered them; and today the Minister of Health is responsible for the sanatorium.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Let me be clear about this. As I understand it, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is making some complaint, rightly or wrongly, about the sanatorium which is administered by the Government. Is that the case in short?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): Perhaps it would help if I stated that this sanatorium was accepted by the Ministry of Health from the British Legion at the take-over on 5th July, 1948. It is a Ministry of Health responsibility.

Commander Pursey: Moreover, this Star Chamber effort may yet form the subject for further action in this House in the new Session, and result in the whole position of the British Legion and its Royal Charter, and its connection with the War Charities Act, forming the subject of the equivalent to a full scale Lynskey Tribunal inquiry at Church House, their own venue.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must forgive me. So far he has not brought his complaint within the purview of Government responsibility. He appears to be dealing with matters which arose under the British Legion. He must show to me that the Government have some responsibility in regard to the matters he is complaining about. Clearly they have no responsibility in the matter he has mentioned so far—namely the tribunal.

11.0 p.m.

Commander Pursey: I defer naturally to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I now go straight into the history of this sanatorium and shall establish the Ministry of Health responsibility which you desire.
The history of this so-called sanatorium at Nayland is, briefly, that it was at first a private cottage hospital and, like most of them, crabbed, cabined and confined.

It was then "up for sale" and was inspected by the L.C.C. Hospital Committee. Although desperately in need of T.B. accommodation, they reported, "We would not accept it as a gift." Nevertheless, despite its unsuitability, the British Legion acquired the place cheaply some years ago as a cheap, charitable institution for ex-Service women T.B. patients. Among other exploitations to keep the cost down, the patients had to manufacture Legion poppies and also paper hats for Christmas crackers.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The Government have not responsibility for that. I must ask the hon. and gallant Member to come to the point, and, if he can, to satisfy me that there is Government responsibility for the complaints he makes. It is not sufficient, nor would it be right, to allow him to make allegations against the British Legion or any other institution unless he first proves some Government responsibility for the matters of which he complains. I cannot allow an attack to be made on the British Legion under the cloak of some question of Government responsibility, unless this is proved.

Commander Pursey: I appreciate my difficulty, but I can now link it up quite definitely because today these British Legion poppies and paper hats are being made by patients entered into this sanatorium under the National Health scheme. My only difficulty is that I wanted to build up the background of it and admittedly, perhaps, I should have shortened that and established my case.
The case I want to put before you and the Minister is the fact that at "Zero Day," when the Ministry of Health took over this sanatorium, those practices should have ended. They have, in fact, gone on, and it is these practices of which I am complaining and to which I wish to draw the attention of the Minister of Health, in the same way as I did the three Questions I put a fortnight ago today. To save staff or make up for those who could not be obtained, patients were compelled, and are being compelled today, to look after themselves before they are sufficiently fit, and their progress suffers accordingly.
I will now actually come to what is in Order, I hope. Last year—vide the British Legion's annual report—the institution was acquired by the Ministry of


Health and placed under the control of the East Anglian Hospital Regional Board, Cambridge, but unfortunately with the previous British Legion Council of Management "strongly represented on the House Committee." Consequently, instead of a clean sweep being made of the Scrooge practices of the British Legion and Naylands being run as a proper National Health Scheme women's sanatorium, it has continued to be run with all its Legion deficiences and "rackets." The result is that today, there are National Health scheme patients with no connection whatever with the British Legion being exploited in the same way as the earlier Legion ex-Service women.
The general responsibility is that of the Minister of Health, but the actual responsibility for failing to clean up this whited sepulchre is primarily that of the East Anglian Regional Hospital Board and, directly, the Nayland's House Committee. The responsibility for the general state of affairs, however, which is a carryover from 5th July, 1948, is obviously fairly and squarely that of the British Legion. Moreover, they had two other T.B. sanatoria for men at Preston Hall, Maidstone, and Douglas House, Bournemouth, both of which were run under much the same conditions and should be thoroughly investigated by the Ministry of Health. Time will not permit quotations from letters about the present position, so I will list complaints from visitors, first from a woman social worker of experience, then a complete stranger to me:—
Appalled at exceptionally dirty conditions; literally festooned in cobwebs; floors not swept for days; not seen any water for months; obviously dust and dirt had effect on bed linen and blankets; broken and dilapidated bedside lockers and chest of drawers and groggy chairs; tea served in a long chipped enamel jug.
The so-called occupational therapy was described as
two hours poppy making. 150 an hour 3d. 6d. a day and 2s. 6d. a week for 10 hours and 1,500 poppies.
Remark:
I shall think very hard before I ever buy another British Legion poppy.
Another racket: Paper hats for Xmas crackers sticking together and folding—a messy job—20 an hour 3d.
Another racket: office typing 3d. per hour.

Since questions were ask in this House the women have been informed that
the money is not payment for work done, but is encouragement money.
What encouragement? On the other hand, embroidery on filet net gloves is something to interest a woman, and more useful work still should be found for them. Second letter, from someone with personal experience of hospital management committees:
Room 31, Rain comes through ceiling—waterproof sheets are put on beds and beds turned round. Buckets or bowls are placed to catch water—but allowed to remain and overflow. Complaints receive reply 'nothing can be done.'
This is sheer nonsense and incompetence.
Complaints — bathrooms and lavatories, Distemper—depressing—month after month.
Writer's remarks:
Have seen many institutions, know what has been done in a short time under National Health Scheme. Cannot understand why not sanatorium of all places. Considerable laxity on whoever responsible.
Third letter, from someone who had not met the other people: general confirmation. Service family, no connection with Legion:
don't want to be mixed up with the Legion and its rackets, yet relation a National Health patient sent to Nayland. Poppy boxes all labelled 'made by totally disabled ex-Service man,' yet ex-Service man has never touched them.
Last year the Legion required propaganda photographs for the Press of ex-Service girls "making poppies." None were making poppies, so it was suggested that ex-Service girls should lend their khaki tunics to non-ex-Service girls to have their photographs taken and create the illusion of ex-Service poppy-makers. Despite the likely come-back, to their credit the ex-Service girls very properly refused, and so there was one less of these "racket photographs." There is no operating theatre at Nayland, so serious cases are bumped 50 miles from Suffolk to Kent by Tilbury-Gravesend ferry to other Legion Sanatorium, Maidstone—as in old Legion days. Obviously this should stop and patients should be operated on in East Anglian hospitals, at Papworth, Scole or Newmarket. There is a fourth letter which I shall not quote because of time.
The next step, obviously, was to visit Nayland, which I did. There are three


blocks, upper, lower, and centre, and possibly conditions differ in each, but the general conditions apply all round. I was, however, informed that one sister in one block was doing everything possible under adverse conditions. In any case, I have no wish to make personal attacks on the medical superintendent, the matron, or the staff. They may well be able to do better with improved facilities, That is for the Minister to decide.
All reports in the letters were confirmed. I walked round the rooms. I visited Room 31 and confirmed the ceiling leak story. No bedside rugs are provided so that patients have to step on to cold floors. In chalets, the only rug is a small piece of Army blanket. One case I shall always remember—a woman of 20, who looked 40, was losing weight, had little flesh, and her bones were almost sticking through her skin. Someone else told me that she had asked for an air ring for more comfort in bed. She was refused with the argument that there were more urgent cases. Yet I understand that several rooms are closed.
Lavatories are an indication of general standards. By midday toilet paper runs out and newspapers are used. A notice which I saw in the lavatories read:
Sanitary towels should be wrapped in newspaper before disposal. Toilet paper must not be used for this purpose. Signed: Assistant Matron.
I understand that bins should be provided for this purpose.
Another practice, contrary to usual hospital routine, is that patients have to pay for their own soap. Those who complain of chipped crockery are informed that there is no other, but they can have a new cup if they pay 9d. I visited the scullery and kitchen, and saw a notice to this effect: "Hot water bottles are not allowed except by permission of the Medical Superintendent." In cold weather this means unnecessary hardship, and women have to get out of bed to fill their own bottles surreptitiously.
Food requires more attention. In the scullery, bread and butter and cake for tea had been cut up hours before, left uncovered, and was being attacked by flies. Milk was also uncovered and open to flies. Meals are supplied in a slipshod manner. Cruets, or salt cellars, are not provided. Instead, salt is piled on the side of lunch plates, the gravy slopped

over it, and a salt meal results. I actually saw and heard what happened at tea-time. Tea was taken round in an old, long, well-chipped and rusty enamel water jug. The same jug was used for the soup at lunch-time. The door of a room was opened and a voice called, "Any bread and butter?" The answer was "No," and then someone said "Cake, please." But no cake arrived, and so patients in some rooms would have had nothing to eat had it not been for the visitors who had brought food.
I saw the poppies and boxes, paper hats and the other gear masquerading as occupational therapy. Surely with the advance of this art, these women, sometimes there for many months, when able, should be taught work of use to them on their return home. Certainly, National Health Scheme patients should not be made to work on poppies and other nonsense for the Legion.
Another subject for criticism is welfare—particularly for ex-Service women originally entered by the Legion. Some come from homes hundreds of miles away in the north and south. Some of them are particularly unfortunate as they come from poor families with widowed mothers who cannot afford to visit them. There are over 800 organisations cadging money from the public for ex-Service men and women, and there is over £20 million in their funds from which to provide travelling facilities, yet these people are not informed of the fact.
I have only been able to paint part of the picture of this wretched Naylands Sanatorium. In view of some of the awful conditions I hope I have done so with restraint and a sense of proportion. There are far worse things I could have said and may say on a future occasion. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale (Sir Ian Fraser) is present. I informed him of this Debate, but I suggest to him that the better plan will be to give the Parliamentary Secretary the remainder of the time to reply.
The British Legion and its ex-officio President have, thank Heaven, no standing whatever in this sanatorium now that it has passed to the National Health Scheme. Any case they wish to make should be made at the public inquiry outside, which I have advocated for nearly a year. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not attempt to make debating


points. Certain improvements have already taken place as the result of my questions. Teapots and milk jugs are now provided. A non-British Legion Committee is going to be set up. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary is not going to take refuge behind the argument that there have been few complaints. We want to get these people up to a better standard. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to go into the question of the distant patients and have them transferred nearer their homes. I appeal to him also to clear out every vestige of the scandal of the British Legion and start to run this place as a proper sanatorium, preferably under a new title, such as that of Florence Nightingale, the great woman hospital reformer.

Sir Ian Fraser: I protest that the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hull (Commander Pursey) has deliberately taken 21 minutes out of 30 in order to prevent me answering the charges he has made, most of which are out of Order. The question as to whether he will be expelled from the British Legion is sub judice, but it has nothing whatever to do with this matter and was decided upon weeks ago.

11.18 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): I should like to start by dissociating myself entirely from a very large part of what has been said this evening and to say that if my hon. and gallant Friend had wished to raise charges of this nature, it would have been far better if he had started by approaching the responsible body, the hospital management committee responsible for this hospital and others in the area, instead of raising it first in the House as he has done. I think if he had followed that course, very many of the wild and exaggerated statements he has made would not have been found to have any accuracy at all. It is true this was originally a private hospital in very bad condition. It is true that the British Legion took it over some years ago and from what I can find out from the careful investigations that have been made, they have made very many real improvements in the condition of that sanatorium in the period of years in which they have been in charge.

Sir I. Fraser: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that during the five years before the Department took it over the British Legion spent £86,000 on this hospital?

Mr. Blenkinsop: I am fully aware of the great deal of work they did in what I know were very difficult conditions. That does not mean there is not much still to be done. We all appreciate that. I think it is very wrong to give the impression that nothing was done by the British Legion when they were in control of this hospital. I should like to make it clear that, in order to ease the changeover from the British Legion to the National Health scheme, it was agreed that the existing house committee should continue to operate as agent for the hospital management committee in order that there should be maintained that contact with the ex-Service community which we wish to maintain.
As my hon. and gallant Friend has mentioned, it is true that very shortly a fresh house committee will be elected, but this should not be regarded as in any way due to any of the remarks he has made; it was agreed some considerable time ago and was, of course, always intended. There will still be on that house committee representation of ex-Service interests, in view of the fact that this sanatorium has been in the past connected with the British Legion village settlement at Maidstone. There are very real and useful contacts existing which we would not like altogether to destroy.
I agree, that some of the wards are not in as good a condition as we would like them to be; but already proposals have been put forward, indeed were put forward some time ago, for their improvement. It is true that much more needs to be done in regard to remedial treatment in the sanatorium. I think it is generally agreed that we want to encourage the men and women there to engage in a variety of useful occupational work. It is true that up to recently the making of poppies and paper hats has gone on, but certainly without any objection from the patients themselves. We are seeing that in future there shall be a wide provision of occupational therapy, such as would be found in any modern sanatorium. I am rather astonished that my hon. and gallant Friend prayed in aid the letter which some of the patients sent to the Press recently, as that letter begins by saying,


As patients we are strongly opposed to the insinuations made by Commander Pursey in the House of Commons recently …
It goes on to express whole-hearted disagreement with much of what he said.

Commander Pursey: It supported the criticism.

Mr. Blenkinsop: There was not much in the way of criticism supported by the comments in this letter. Some points of criticism were valid, but many are wholly trivial in character, and particularly such remarks as where the salt was put, and whether the gravy spills over it, or does not. I think it is rather a pity that matters of that kind should be raised in this House. Complaint was made about the quality of meals. I have gone to the trouble of getting the meal menus for a considerable period back. I have examined what is provided for the patients in this hospital and I say that it compares

very well indeed with the standard of any hospital in the country.
I strongly suggest to my hon. and gallant Friend that instead of raising this matter in the manner he has done this evening he would have been better advised to approach the hospital management committee, who are only too anxious to see that, in so far as the standards in this hospital fall below the standards in the best sanatoria in the country, they shall be improved as quickly as possible.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-four Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.